NU Could Take Control of Haddam Neck Fuel Rod Facility
The Nuclear Regulator Commission recently gave tentative approval to transfer the license for the site to NU.
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Northeast Utilities will take control of the spent fuel rod facility at the site of the former Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant in Haddam Neck under a proposed merger that is under consideration by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
NU, the parent company of Connecticut Light & Power, would become the majority owner of the site following a proposed merger between its subsidiaries, including CL&P, with one of the minority owners of the Haddam Neck spent fuel rod site, NStar. The NRC, which monitors and oversees the spent fuel rod facility on the Connecticut River, recently approved an application to transfer the license for the fuel rod facility to NU, pending the proposed merger.
Meanwhile, the state's Public Utilities Regulatory Authority on Wednesday issued a draft decision stating that it has the jurisdiction to review and approve the proposed merger between NU and NStar.
The draft decision reverses a previous PURA ruling that was under appeal by state's Office of Consumer Counsel (OCC). In its draft decision, PURA said it is reversing its decision to review the merger based on new information it has recieved.
PURA said it is “legally obliged to review the proposed merger to ensure that after any resulting merger CL&P and Yankee will have the qualifications and ability to provide safe, adequate, reliable and reasonably-priced services for Connecticut customers.”
In response to the announcement, Senator Richard Blumenthal issued this statement.
“I am pleased by the decision to review the NU-NSTAR merger, affording consumers and public officials an opportunity to assert the public interest in this potentially problematic combination,” Blumenthal said. “My hope is that hearings and other means of public comment will enable an effective, open, and accessible review. I look forward to participating in this process which will have historic and far-reaching ramifications for accountability and quality of service.”
CL&P has come under fire in recent months for its response to two major storms that hit Connecticut, one in August, the other in October, and which knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of customers throughout the state. The criticism leveled against CL&P following the October snowstorm, by state and local officials as well as residents, led to the resignation of the company's president, Jeffrey Butler.
The Haddam Neck nuclear power plant was decommissioned in 2007. The move followed the physical closing of the plant, which had operated for 28 years, in 1996. The property has a commanding view of the Connecticut River, and of the East Hampton shoreline on the opposite side, and for many years the iconic dome of the nuclear power plant could be seen from numerous vantage points along the river. The dome was taken down after the plant was closed.
The only radioactive material that remains on the site are some 1,000 spent nuclear fuel rods held in a five-acre containment facility. The rods are being kept there, under the license the NRC oversees, until the U.S. establishes a spent fuel rod disposal facility. Policy makers, and residents, for more than 30 years have debated about where that facility should be located, with Yucca Mountain in Nevada a leading contender for it.
Note: Original story was updated with statement from Sen. Blumenthal.
DGC3
5:32 pm on Wednesday, January 4, 2012
commanding view of the East Hampton shoreline on the opposite side - the writer needs to study local geography
slimbob
7:20 am on Thursday, January 5, 2012
Scary stuff. I don't feel good about having nuclear waste buried next to the river a few miles from my house. My friend's family lives by the plant and it is creepy out there. I hope there is lots of oversight of what is going on with the spent fuel rods. This issue of waste is why I can't get behind nuclear energy.
Gene Bartholomew
9:00 am on Thursday, January 5, 2012
I worked there as a sub-contractor and went through Rad Worker training.
There is something you all need to know and to share with everyone you know.
Many times you will hear the media or politicians stating how efficient nuclear power is and how clean, nothing could be further from the truth.
First off, when the rods are manufactured they are considered to be at 100% of their capacity to produce heat. When they are used to create steam a tremendous amount of heat is required to turn that turbine. When the rods are at 90%, having used only 10% of their capacity they are considered "Spent Fuel Rods".
You hear that term, "spent fuel rods" all the time, and the average person takes it to mean they are harmless, their radioactivity all used up, but it is really still 90% hot.
Now you and I, American Taxpayers, have to babysit them, power companies effectively lobbied our corrupt scum in Washington to pass that responsibility on to us, yet another crime against the American people. That is why we have to babbysit them for 300 years or more. Not to mention they were safer, we were safer, and the USA was safer when they were in the dome, the move to an open field was simply to save NU money, savings that we never realized.
So when you hear some fool stating that we need more nukes and yada yada they do not know what they are talking about.
We need to move to solar, wind, wave, and hydro, not backwards, forwards.
Keep the river front for all of us
3:58 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
and we certainly don't need CL & P overseeing this graveyard..........they couldn't even handle the recent power outage..........what about a nuclear leak? Doesn't make me very comfortable living just across the river from this area.
Pro Death
1:29 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
I worked at the plant for many years also and unless we get a grip on human overpopulation or reduce our reliance on electricity nuclear power is the only way to keep up with the demand.
Gene Bartholomew
5:07 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
Thats not true, thats propaganda.
By using everything that is available to us to produce clean power from solar, wind, and hydro, combined with newer more efficient products that use much less electricity, like LED lights, etc we can easily shut many plants down. A side thing would be to start training people to turn things OFF, instead of ON, people are idiots, they have everything on in their house, never get on their kids about it and then wonder why they have a $300 a month bill, wow.
Its a corporate crime/ political thing.
Companies like NU lobby our govts to stop us from getting free power on our homes and they if we do they make it so we can't put anything back into the grid, so that they remain viable, so that plants HAVE to be built. It's all BS.
Not how an intelligent efficient society will or can prosper.
We can't prosper until the big decisions are made based on what is the best for the people instead of corporations.
And solar and wind and hydro power on homes and businesses would create more jobs, NU hasn't created any jobs, they're cutting and cutting services, while they expand.
CT is taking millions, maybe hundreds of millions to build 2 giant solar pv farms which we will pay for and then give to NU, they will then in turn charge us the going rate.
Ain't that sweet??? and you wonder why the economy isn't recovering.
Pro Death
9:19 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
It is true that people are idiots and the idiots keep breeding like jackrabbits, so we will never have an intelligent efficient society. Therefore the only way to sustain is with nuclear power. I wish things were different but we're screwed.
Gene Bartholomew
9:15 am on Friday, January 6, 2012
I agree in part, I have held a theory for about 2 decades that were are breeding stupid people at a phenominal rate.
But to say the only way is with Nuclear is wearing blinders, Nuclear has its own set of issues and is far from clean, the disasters in Japan and Chernobyl, not to mention 3 mile Island and issues at Millstone AND Yankee and Vermont should send a clear message that this is not the way to go, maybe in another 100 years when we have the ability to obtain cold fusion.
I was at SubBas in Groton when at Electric Boat the radiation alarms went off, everyone at both facilities went scrambling trying to find the source, the source was Millstone, they were releasing and the radiation was dropping on Groton, the people were never told, so please spare me the nuke is safe BS, its not and the managers of it are not trust worthy.
There are thousands and thousand of miles of open land in the west, desert, that can be used for giant solar, wind, algae form of clean power that will far exceed our usage.
It's just retarded One Dimensional Corporate thinking that keeps this country from being great, their greed, they are too some of the most stupid idiotic people I have ever had the displeasure of meeting.
We've become a society where you do not advance to the top based on your brilliance, but on your ability to BROWNOSE, this has left this nation with a buch of greedy back stabbing brown-nosers in charge that are in reality........idiots.
Pro Death
2:50 pm on Friday, January 6, 2012
I wasn't clear in my last post, I agree we should produce all the power possible using mother nature but I don't believe it will ever be enough to sustain the need and demand. Trust me I enjoyed working in hydro and fossil fuel plants much more than nuclear, I'm sure wind and solar are even nicer. As far as the release at Millstone it didn't hurt anyone more than being at the beach on a sunny day.
Gene Bartholomew
9:33 am on Saturday, January 7, 2012
yeah, as long as you had sunblock 2000
what about the people that inhaled it?
Pro Death
12:40 pm on Saturday, January 7, 2012
It was a non issue once they discovered they were not the source. Millstone does not have an alpha issue like CY had, they could easily determine if their was any intake at all and how much. No different than a day at the beach.
Gene Bartholomew
9:58 am on Sunday, January 8, 2012
Sorry, corporations can't be trusted, they proved it, not to mention engineers are the most insane bunch I've ever met, these two entities together running a nuke plant that could potentially sicken and kill hundreds of thousands of people is a bad mix.
Millstone and CY released many times when BY LAW they should have sounded the alarms and had people evacuate down wind, they didn't because it would cost money and reputation and hurt them when they go for rate increases. Not to mention their dropping their responsibilty for the rods.
Easily determine the intake??? are you insane??? they hid it, they didn't go out and test people, they pretended it didn't happen the multiple times it did happen.
So please spare me the bull.
Keep the river front for all of us
9:19 am on Sunday, February 5, 2012
Pro....especially if the beach is across the river from Ct. Yankee or Millstone. IT IS ALL $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Gene Bartholomew
10:05 am on Sunday, February 5, 2012
I was there as a subcontractor when they started taking the plant down, some fool decided it would cheaper to grind the pump house foundation and send a 5 gal bucket to SC instead of big slabs of concrete. They were using a grinder like the ones you see grinding the street before paving but smaller, it seemed odd, but I thought "they must know what they are doing".
I went on the hot side to fix a furnace as they were grinding this slab, opened the building door and there was a dumpster full of concrete dust, I said screw this and left, as I went out the hot side the alarms went off, I can't tell you what a terrible experience that is. They wiped me down and sent me to the bunker to be scanned for internal contamination.
When I entered the bunker there 2 men who just had the "Silkwood Shower" and the attendant was getting their readings out of the machine, she looked at them, looked at the men, looked at the readings again and took them saying I'll be right back.
The whole body scanner is like a phone booth, I got in, and I was clear, I left and called my boss and said I'm done, fire me if you have to but I am not going back to that place, they are cutting corners in decomissoning to save money and I want no part of it.
Safety is supposed to be job 1, but it is always cut, Kleen Energy is a good example of managements inability to learn.
Pro Death
1:21 pm on Sunday, February 5, 2012
Way too paranoid about radiation, reminds me of people messing with electricity that haven't a clue.
Gene Bartholomew
8:30 am on Monday, February 6, 2012
I had rad worker training sport, I know more about it than you do, all you have is rhetoric
why don't you go crawl into the casks since you think it's so safe, briing a few rods home for your family to play with
Pro Death
9:38 am on Monday, February 6, 2012
Me too, and then some, I actually handled some of the material being stored in the casks. Never said it would be safe to go inside one, I said they are not a threat unless they were blown up. Funny how you act like a child when you don't know what to say.
Gene Bartholomew
9:49 am on Monday, February 6, 2012
sarcasm my dear Pro,
the problem isn't the material or technology
the problem is that humans have proven again and again that they can't be trusted to run things in a safe manner, given the choice between safety and profit, they choose profit and tell themsleves "nothing will probably happen"
then it does like CY, Millstone, 3 Mile, Chernobyl, etc etc and then they say " we had no idea that could happen, there was no way to prevent it"
its the human factor and greed that are the risk factors
Gene Bartholomew
9:51 am on Monday, February 6, 2012
Do you really think they are safer in casks than in the dome in a pool of water?
Pro Death
10:28 am on Monday, February 6, 2012
If the pool and supporting equipment (pumps, pipes, heat exchangers etc.) were new no, but not in the condition they were in and being at the end of life expectancy definitely not. It would be a disaster waiting to happen I do agree it was way cheaper than rebuilding. Bottom line is almost everything is done for profit, if that weren't the case few would have an incentive to do a damn thing including getting out of bed in the morn.
Gene Bartholomew
9:55 am on Monday, February 6, 2012
The whole cask concept was inspired by greed, not safety, it was designed to eliminate costs associated with maintaining the dome and pool and a crew, something the companies knew they had to do.
Bottom line its much cheaper to put them in cement on a hill out in the open for terrorists to attack or gain access too with an occasional rent a cop.
The one thing we did accomplish in fighting them was stopping them from turning it into the Northeast Nuke Waste and Spent Rod Storage Facility, they could only put rods from CY there.
Pro Death
10:48 am on Monday, February 6, 2012
actually the cask concept was inspired for the need for more room in the pools, but in the case of CY I would have to say leaks and or the potential for them, may have been the incentive for their decision. Cost was a definite factor also. I know at one point in time they had a bad fuel assembly that contaminated the system, plus an issue with spent resin.