Three of Switzerland's 5 nuclear power plants are not producing power

Impetus · 11-08-2014 11:42am #1

A small country can't rely on one or two nuclear power plants. The following report comes from today's edition of nzz.ch. Looking at Swissgrid's website Switzerland is still a net exporter of power (as of 12h36 CET), - mainly thanks to renewables.

Three of the five Swiss nuclear power plants currently provide no power. The AKW Muhlenberg in the canton of Bern, body city in the canton of Aargau and the reactor block 2 of the NPP Beznau in Doettingen, also in the canton of Aargau, are for the annual inspection and replacement of fuel from the mains. The work will take up to four weeks.

The Bernese energy company BKW switched on Sunday from the NPP Muhlenberg for inspection work and for the exchange of fuel. The annual audit should take about four weeks.

Extensive tests within and outside the reactor pressure vessel, preventive work in the electrical and mechanical fields as well as periodic testing of components, fittings and systems were the focus of this year's annual revision, the BKW shared on Monday.

36 Of the total of 240 fuel assemblies are replaced. In addition, the BKW replaced six of the 57 control rod drive mechanisms.

The 345 employees of the nuclear power plant Muhlenberg be in this work supported by about 700 external experts from the region and the country and abroad. During the four weeks the Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (ENSI) leads locally through numerous inspections.

Also AKW body city is four weeks from the network

The nuclear power plant body city in the canton of Aargau went on Monday for around four-week annual audit from the mains. About a fifth of the 648 fuel assemblies should be replaced.

In addition, maintenance and numerous inspection at the reactor are held such as the nuclear power plant Leibstadt AG (KKL) announced on Monday. Some 1,000 additional workers help to check the various systems.

Also, the reactor block 2 of the NPP Beznau in Doettingen AG went on Monday for the annual change of the fuel elements of power. This work is ongoing according to energy company Axpo about two weeks.

Power currently produce the NPP Gösgen in Däniken SO and the reactor block 1 of the NPP Beznau. (SDA-ATS / sr / gg / ga)

Swissgrid: http://www.swissgrid.ch

http://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/drei-schweizer-atomkraftwerke-abgeschaltet-1.18360520

Impetus · 12-08-2014 4:36pm

The Swiss news was followed today by Britain taking four nuclear reactors offline - two of them at Heysham (about 240 km from Dublin). This represents 25% of the country's total nuclear capacity. Leaks found etc. See

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/11/nuclear-reactors-offline-fault-power-plants

Capt'n Midnight · 12-09-2014 1:35am

Other recent unplanned shutdowns

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29058644

Four UK nuclear reactors that were shut down for safety reasons may not be back online until the end of the year, EDF Energy has said.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/08/14/belgium-nuclear-doel-idUKL6N0QK43R20140814

PARIS, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Belgian energy company Electrabel said its Doel 4 nuclear reactor would stay offline at least until the end of this year after major damage to its turbine, with the cause confirmed as sabotage.

http://www.expatica.com/be/news/belgian-news/Nuclear-reactors-Doel-3-and-Tihange-2-may-never-be-restarted-_300083.html

20/08/2014Nuclear reactors Doel 3 and Tihange 2 may never be restarted
It may well be possible that two of Belgium's nuclear reactors, Doel 3 and Tihange 2, will never be put online again.

Small cracks in the nuclear vessels are turning out to be a bigger problem than initially thought.

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/business/2014/08/25/44/0501000000AEN20140825008851320F.html

SEOUL, Aug. 25 (Yonhap) -- A nuclear reactor on South Korea's southeast coast halted operation on Monday as rainwater flooded in, plant operators said.

http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL5N0RA1WY20140909

BUCHAREST, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Romania shut down its second nuclear reactor at Cernavoda on the river Danube on Sept. 8 due to a technical glitch, state-owned nuclear power producer Nuclearelectrica said on Tuesday.

http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5N0RC1IG20140911

PARIS, Sept 11 (Reuters) - French utility EDF's 900-megawatt (MW) Chinon B 3 nuclear reactor stopped at 0800 GMT on Thursday for an unplanned outage, France's power grid RTE said on its website.

http://www.al.com/news/huntsville/index.ssf/2014/08/browns_ferry_nuclear_plants_un.html

August 27, 2014 at 8:03 AM
ATHENS, Alabama – Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant officials took the plant's Unit 1 reactor offline Tuesday evening after monitoring equipment indicated an "electrical load imbalance" in the main power generator's circuitry, TVA spokesman Jim Hopson said this morning.

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/254068/faulty-sensor-shuts-down-nuclear-reactor-near-nyc.html

(Wednesday, August 13th, 2014)
A nuclear power plant near New York City says a faulty sensor led to the automatic shutdown of a reactor that produces power for about a million homes.

https://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nuclear_power_news/archive/2014/08/18/diesel-generator-issue-compels-shutdown-of-diablo-canyon-reactor-081801.aspx

Nuclear Street News Team
Mon, Aug 18 2014 9:29 AM
Unit 2 at California's Diablo Canyon nuclear plant powered down Thursday night when inspections revealed two faulty screws in emergency diesel generators.

http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2014/09/08/mystery-noise-shuts-hope-creek-reactor/15281709/

11:50 a.m. EDT September 8, 2014
Mystery noise inside PSEG Nuclear's Hope Creek nuclear plant containment building prompted a shutdown of the 1,219 megawatt operation Friday, federal regulators reported Monday.

www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=238976

ST. PETERSBURG, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Kola Nuclear Power Plant, 200km south of the Russian port city Murmansk, was forced into automatic shutdown on Tuesday after the failure of circulation pumps.

you can dig down here too if you want to look for more incidents
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2014/

Firewalkwithme · 12-09-2014 1:50am

Well at least the DPRK have got their one up and running again so that's some good news.

Macha · 12-09-2014 10:54pm

The Belgian situation is quite serious. They have seven nukes plants that represent 55% of capacity. The TSO Elia is planned rolling brownouts this winter ax there isn't enough interconnection with neighbouring countries to ensure supply.

The country's energy policy has been a mess for the last five years and this is the result.

Impetus · 13-09-2014 9:49am

Macha wrote: »

The Belgian situation is quite serious. They have seven nukes plants that represent 55% of capacity. The TSO Elia is planned rolling brownouts this winter ax there isn't enough interconnection with neighbouring countries to ensure supply.

The country's energy policy has been a mess for the last five years and this is the result.

Add to that NATO's ill-conceived attempts to EU-ize Ukraine, and the risk that Russian gas supplies to EUland will start to be restricted within the next month or so, and one can see an EU-wide energy supply crisis - ironically manufactured in Brussels where both NATO and EU are "headquartered".

Mr Putin is not stupid, and will have access to information on this too, and is probably just waiting for the winter chill to start.

Meanwhile the idiots in Brussels, and the various national governments in EU states that pull these puppet's strings, "turn up the volume" on these sanctions on an almost weekly basis. It seems to me that the only solution is to turn Ukraine into a Swiss style federation, where individual regions of this large country have their own power, and the government in Kiev is like the Federal government in Bern - ie little more than a clearing house. A new Ukraine constitution should declare the new federation to be a neutral country too. A package of measures along these lines would remove Putin's excuse to do anything to put a spanner in the works of Western Europe, during this fragile supply period.

At a national level much can be done in Ireland to insulate itself from these issues. eg getting Corrib gas running, increasing gas storage capacity to say 50% of annual gas demand, and getting the proposed LNG terminal operational and connected to the gas grid. An LNG terminal will have capital cost which will need a minimum level of demand running through it to cover its basic costs - and this needs to be planned in to the system. LNG is an extremely portable source of energy globally and there is no shortage of it. Imported pipeline gas requires a huge investment too and is subject to any problems that might flare up along the pipeline route, including the source at the other end.

There is no time to delay or assume that because Ireland's gas supply does not come via Ukraine that the crisis there will not bite the Irish gas supply chain. Shortages in central Europe can have a rolling impact across the European gas grid, as one country's demand has to be supplemented by another, after loss of supply from RU.

Macha · 14-09-2014 8:37pm

I agree about the sanctions. Part of the reason is Europe's being put under a lot of pressure by the US to impose sanctions. Even Hilary Clinton has told Europe to get its energy security in order so that it can play a better role in dealing with Russia. In fairness, the previous mild winter means Europe's gas storage has never been higher - we're at around 80% of total demand over the winter.

Three quarters of Europe's gas is used in the heating sector. The absolute number one thing Europe, and Ireland, should do is efficiency. The European Commission's own analysis shows that with strong efficiency targets and measures, Europe could cut its gas imports by 40%.

In terms of building out expensive gas infrastructure, I don't think it makes economic sense to see things purely nationally. Europe should create solidarity rules that allow countries to rely on storage or supplies in other EU member states. This would mean our most important project would be improving pipeline connections into the European gas market. LNG is very expensive and we would have to compete with Asian wholesale gas prices to make Europe an interesting destination for LNG exporters, making it even more expensive.

Renewable heating options are also interesting to explore like solar thermal + storage.

Capt'n Midnight · 01-12-2014 11:32pm

November 2014 unplanned outages / loss of power

Nuclear is not reliable and outages can be sudden and last days

Belgium
http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/fire-causes-shutdown-at-belgian-nuclear-reactor_1507367.html

Brussels: A fire caused the shutdown of a nuclear reactor in eastern Belgium on Sunday, media reports said, making it the fourth reactor to go offline in the country.

...
A preliminary investigation ruled out sabotage -- the cause of a shutdown at another plant in August -- concluding that the fire had a "technical cause".

Two other nuclear plants, in Antwerp and Tihange, have been shut since March following the discovery of micro-cracks in them.

Czech Republic
http://rt.com/news/202587-zechnuclear-dukovany-shutdown/

The Dukovany nuclear power plant in the southern Czech Republic has halted operations of two of its reactors after a pipe in the facility’s cooling system started to leak.

The Wednesday shutdown was necessary as the repair was likely to take more than three days, which is allowed under safety regulations, the plant’s operator, Czech electricity company CEZ said.

UK
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-30146953

A nuclear reactor at the Torness power station in East Lothian has gone offline in an unplanned outage, its operator has said.

EDF Energy said the 640MW Torness 2 reactor went offline at 01:16 on Friday.

The unit was expected to remain unavailable for seven days, the firm said. It means nearly 5GW of British nuclear capacity is offline.

US
http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2014/11/perry_nuclear_power_plant_rest.html

Perry shut itself down a week ago after a digital control system mistakenly slowed down pumps that supply the reactor with fresh water -- causing other safety systems to immediately -- and without incident -- shut down the reactor.]

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2014/20141113en.html]

"On November 12, 2014 at 1548 [EST], Unit 2 was manually tripped due to a lowering 2B steam generator level caused by the spurious (slow) closure of 2B Main Feedwater Isolation Valve, HCV-09-2B.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2014/20141112en.html

"At 0226 CDT on September 14, 2014, MNGP [Monticello Nuclear Generating Station] experienced a trip of the 12 Reactor Recirc Pump. The subsequent power drop and lowering of recirculating water flow resulted in the plant being outside of the analyzed region of the Power to Flow Map. Operators promptly restored operation within the analyzed region per procedural guidance. ... The plant is in stable condition at 51% power

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2014/20141110en.html

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION REQUIRED SHUTDOWN DUE TO DROPPED CONTROL ELEMENT ASSEMBLY ... "Efforts to repair the CEA control system and realign CEA 15 with the other CEAs in its regulating group were unsuccessful. Shutdown of Unit 2 was completed at 1636 [MST]

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2014/20141103en.html

"On November 1, 2014, at 0249 [EDT], DC Cook Unit 1 reactor was manually tripped and at 0248 [EDT] DC Cook Unit 2 was manually tripped due lowering condenser vacuum caused by degraded forebay conditions (observed thick grass and sand).

Russia
http://rbth.co.uk/news/2014/11/04/rosatom_rostov_npp_shutdown_unrelated_to_equipment_of_its_units_41135.html

"The units were disconnected for reasons beyond their equipment, due to maintenance of the Rostov NPP - Yuzhnaya overhead power line. The automatic safety system shut down three out of four main circulating pumps of the first unit and the turbo-generator of the second unit," the source said.

Currently, the second unit is running at 35% percent of its thermal output capacity and may be connected to the network already this afternoon. The first unit may be connected within 24 hours, the Rosatom source added.

18MonthsaSlave · 04-12-2014 8:55pm

It seems steam turbines are not reliable and some steam turbines happen to be powered by nuclear.
I'm not especially in favour of fission nuclear but just skimming over the reports above it isn't clear that nuclear was to blame for all these shutdowns.

gctest50 · 04-12-2014 9:07pm

they just need a bit of servicing and go wrong now and again ? so what - they're complex yokes

the " i had a toyota and it never needed anything and it went in the storms and and and " gets a bit tedious

wind turbines shed blades and go on fire :
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_17-7-2014-8-56-10

Capt'n Midnight · 05-12-2014 1:39am

18MonthsaSlave wrote: »

It seems steam turbines are not reliable and some steam turbines happen to be powered by nuclear.
I'm not especially in favour of fission nuclear but just skimming over the reports above it isn't clear that nuclear was to blame for all these shutdowns.

Fossil fuel steam boiler stop getting hotter once you turn off the fuel flow. Nuclear must be cooled until residual heat has gone or else bad things can happen. If you can't restore the cooling in time then you are off line for a couple of days at least.

Also nuclear tends to be a case of all your eggs in one basket as it's a case of loosing a 600 to 1,500MW reactor vs. loosing a 300MW turbine or smaller boilers.

Capt'n Midnight · 05-12-2014 1:53am

gctest50 wrote: »

they just need a bit of servicing and go wrong now and again ? so what - they're complex yokes
...

wind turbines shed blades and go on fire

It's that they go wrong far more often than you'd like. And causes range from sabotage to jellyfish.

Yes you can loose wind turbines , but when was the last time anyone lost 1GW of wind farm all at once ???
When was the last time a country shut down 1GW of wind power for political reasons.

In theory nuclear is safe and reliable. The US , UK and French navies show that it could be done if you have the budget and skilled people.

In practice commercial power hasn't delivered reliability. And in many cases it's been (mis)management cutting corners and having to pay extra later on to cover for it. Cost overruns and remedial works are not exactly rare.

Three of Switzerland's 5 nuclear power plants are not producing power

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