How wind power affects structurally the power prices at different time in a day in the power market

It is generally understood that Renewable energy costs are Higher than Conventional forms of energy.

In the Electricity market as Renewables are penetrating the markets, the rule is no more true.

The production tax credit that a  producer is entitled and Trade Rules Intricacies are favoring Renewables over Conventional plants ( Nuclear, Coal, Nat Gas).

Trade Rules Intricacies 

Quoted from From http://www.wind-energy-the-facts.org/en/part-3-economics-of-wind-power/chapter-5-wind-power-at-the-spot-market/the-impact-of-wind-power-on-the-power-market-dk-case.html

• Wind power normally has a zero marginal cost: wind is free unlike a fossil fueled plant and therefore enters near the bottom of

the supply curve in a market. (also called the generation stack)

This shifts the supply curve to the right on figure 0.11, resulting in a lower power price, depending on the price elasticity of the power demand. The price is reduced from Price A to Price B when wind power production increases during peak demand. In general, the price of power

is expected to be lower during periods with high wind than in periods with low wind. This is known as the‘merit order effect’. 

The merit order for a Market Operator is a way of ranking available sources of energy, in ascending order of their short-run marginal cost of production, so that those with the lowest marginal costs are the first ones to be brought online to meet demand, and the plants with the highest marginal costs are the last to be brought on line.

• There may be congestion in the power transmission lines, especially during periods with high wind power generation. Thus, if the available transmission capacity cannot cope with the required power export, the supply area is separated from the rest of the power market and constitutes its own pricing area.

With an excess supply of power in this area, conventional power plants have to reduce their production, since it is generally not economically desirable to limit the power production of wind.

In most cases, this will lead to a lower power price in this sub-market. When wind power supply increases, it shifts the power  supply curve to the right.

At a given  demand, this implies a lower spot price at the power market, as shown.

Night, Day and Peak Load

However, the impact of wind power depends on the time of the day.

If there is plenty of  wind power at midday, during the peak power demand,  most of the available generation will be used. This
implies that we are at the steep part of the supply curve in and, consequently, wind power will have a strong impact, reducing the spot power price significantly.

But if there is plenty of wind-produced electricity during the night, when power demand is low and most power is produced on base load plants, we are at the flat part
of the supply curve and consequently the impact of wind power on the spot price is low.

Solar
Solar is also a renewable power. Germany has the highest market penetration of solar power in the world, but fewer
hours of sunlight than many other countries: the result is that they offer remarkable generous
feed-in tariffs for solar power, (Trade regulations & social preference).

Solar power is available during some of the peak demand period and helps 
flatten the demand for non-solar power so power price.

I Pay you to take my Energy

These same results have been confirmed for Wind-power in the Supply Curve in the ERCOT, MISO(in its most wind rich zones of such Iowa), California Iso and the Nordpool markets.

The % of hours with negative real-time electricity price is astonishing everywhere renewable have a high market penetration.

Wind Energy producers can bid a lower, negative price to enter the markets and therefore paying the market to take their energy.

Production tax credit (PTC)

How can they make the break-even if they dump cheap energy ?

The answer is that as long as they receive a net benefit from the production they sell and the tax credit on each MWH produced, it makes sense to produce.

This idiosyncrasy is well explained in Negative Electricity Prices and the Production Tax Credit by THE NORTHBRIDGE GROUP.

Why wind producers can pay us to take their power – and why that is a bad thing. 

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/news/business/exelon.pdf

Fossil Fuels power plants vs Renewables.

Fossil fuel (Coal, fuel oil) can’t instantly be activated or dis-activated in the grid.

Natural gas-fired plant tend to be activated at the peak period because of operations costs, if peak prices are depressed they will not get activated.

The Negative bid strategy used by Windpower is crowding out fossil power plants so it cost more for them to restart the plant at the peak hour.

In contrast, Wind power can be activated within one hour, wind is intermittent and wind field power can come into the market quickly.

In regions where renewable have a high market penetration, many conventional power generation capacity may have to be closed because of  less activity hours at lower electricity prices.

The actual power generation capacity in the Grid comes from past investments decisions initially based upon by the initial electricity deregulation rules in the 90′S.

When deregulated Markets were conceived, the goals were to bring competition in the electricity market with a set of rules that could enact the investments needed to build a solid transmission grid and a reliable supply.

It was not envisioned that a new source of energy by its nature could one day get a bidding privilege in the merit order effect and could be favored with a granted production subsidy to compete other sources of energy.

- The Trade Shipping and Finance Wizard

Senator Barbara Boxer, Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee, issued the following statements.

Senator Boxer said:

“The NRC staff proposal, which could pave the way for the restart of the San Onofre nuclear power plant before the investigations of the crippled plant are completed, is dangerous and premature. It makes absolutely no sense to even consider taking any steps to reopen San Onofre until these investigations look at every aspect of reopening the plant given the failure of the tubes that carry radioactive water. In addition, the damaged plant is located in an area at risk of earthquake and tsunami. With eight million people living within 50 miles of this plant, the staff proposal is beyond irresponsible.”

Rep. Markey said:

“Today, the NRC showed blatant disregard for the safety of tens of millions of people who live near the San Onofre nuclear plant. It is absurd for NRC to say that Southern California Edison’s license amendment is entirely unrelated to a future decision to allow the restart of the reactor; it is like saying that giving someone a driver’s license has nothing to do with allowing them to drive a car.”

________________________

Southern California Edison wants the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to approve lowering San Onofre safety standards in May 2013 in order to expedite a restart of their defective Unit 2 nuclear reactor by June 1, 2013.  Currently, San Onofre must be able to run at 100% power for two years before it is considered safe to operate.  Edison wants their operating license amended to lower this to 70% percent power during Cycle 17.

If approved by the NRC, Edison would be able to restart their defective Unit 2 nuclear reactor without the rigors of a thorough license amendment and public adjudicatory hearing on the San Onofre safety issues.  Contact Senator Barbara Boxer and NRC Chairman Allison Macfarlane and tell them to stop the NRC from lowering safety standards at San Onofre. 

Friends of the Earth (FOE) held a telephone briefing April 2nd with John Large, a London-based expert on nuclear reactors. He provided an excellent detailed analysis of Edison’s request, explaining why Unit 2 should not be restarted. And Edison knew there were problems with the steam generator design, but had them built anyway. See John Large’s 3/27/2013 report: Review of Tube Wear Identified in the San Onofre Replacement Steam Generators – Mitsubishi Reports UES-20120254 Rev.0 (3/64) and L5-04GA588(0) together with Other Relevant Information, R3218-A2. See also FOE’s 4/1/2013 press release and 4/1/2013 letter to Senator Boxer and Rep. Waxman.

Both Unit 2 and 3 show decades of wear in critical steam generator tubes after less than two years of operation. Edison only discovered this after a radiation leak in Unit 3 (less than one year of operation).  Edison’s nuclear “experts” had promised these replacement steam generators would last decades.  Instead, thousands of defective tubes needed plugging — unprecedented in NRC history (see Plugged Tubes Chart with NRC data and summary of steam generator problems).

NRC SONGS Lead Inspector, Greg Werner, said no technology exists to detect steam generator tube radiation leaks until AFTER they occurs, and there is no way to test an operating steam generator (only computer simulations are done).  

Edison implies San Onofre may be needed before this summer, so wants approval for restart in May 2013.  However, California’s electric grid operator has plans to avoid blackouts this summer just as they did last summer (one of the hottest summers on record).

MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT

April 3rd pre-application NRC meeting to discuss Edison’s plan to submit a license amendment request (LAR) claiming “no significant hazard” for Unit 2. The proposed LAR would address compliance with the San Onofre Unit 2, Technical Specifications, discussed in the NRC staff’s request for additional information (RAI), question number 32, transmitted to SCE on December 26, 2012.  Edison has not been able to adequately address NRC RAI question 32 regarding the ability to successfully operate Unit 2 at all ranges of power.

…All in-service steam generator tubes shall retain structural integrity over the full range of normal operating conditions (including startup, operation in the power range, hot standby, cool down and all anticipated transients­ included in the design specification) and design basis accidents…

This is a Category 1 meeting. The public is invited to participate in this meeting and will have one or more opportunities to communicate with the NRC after the business portion, but before the meeting is adjourned. Proprietary information may be discussed at certain times during the meeting. These portions of the meeting will be closed to members of the public who have not been granted access to the information by the owner of the information.  Participants from the NRC include staff members from the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR).

Interested members of the public can participate in this meeting via Webcast link or toll-free audio teleconference.

• Webcast link: http://video.nrc.gov. This link to the NRC webcast page will permit the user to select the meeting to be viewed and the viewing speed. The meeting link will become active approximately one hour prior to meeting start.
• Teleconference bridge number: 888-677-3916; passcode 2670631. [approximately 400 caller maximum]. Callers will initially be placed in a “listen only” status. At the designated point in the agenda, two-way calling will be enabled, so that the public may ask questions of the NRC staff regarding the meeting discussions.

Individuals interested in attending the meeting in person are requested to contact one of the meeting contacts listed below in advance of the meeting, as seating may be limited. [Note: requests to have NRC hold all San Onofre public meetings in Southern California have been denied.]

• Application and Amendment to San Onofre Operating License 4/10/2013
• NRC Official Meeting Notice and Agenda
• Facts Edison doesn’t want you to know: Why San Onofre should not be restarted/Plugged Tubes Chart
• NRC San Onofre Steam Generator Tube Degradation website
• Citizens’ 4/1/2013 letter to Senator Barbara Boxer and Rep. Henry Waxman
• SAN ONOFRE: Edison’s restart request reduces safety to a footnote - Friends of the Earth, 4/1/2013
• Large Associates 3-27-2013 Review of Tube Wear Identified in the San Onofre Replacement Steam Generators – Mitsubishi Reports UES-20120254 Rev.0 (3/64) and L5-04GA588(0) together with Other Relevant Information, R3218-A2
• Edison Draft License Amendment Request

• Coastal Commissioner Dayna Bochco said PG&E explained what the soundwaves would do. “They did convince me that there is a target there, 7 or 8 miles below the ocean, that would give them more information about the Hosgri Fault that maybe dips down under the plant, maybe not,” she said. But Bochco said when she asked if finding the fault line would prove definitively that the nuclear plant was safe, she was told it was highly unlikely. “And if it’s not going to tell you, then why am I doing this to the ocean?” she asked.
• Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography had originally planned to begin seismic testing off San Onofre nuclear power plant this year. Because the plant is offline, its operator, Southern California Edison, had postponed that study. The Coastal Commission’s decision makes it unlikely the testing will happen any time soon. KPBS 11/14/2012

The California Coastal Commission meets Wednesday, November 14, 2012, at 9:00 am in Santa Monica to address PG&E’s proposed high-energy seismic surveys.  Some of the issues for PG&E are similar to the seismic survey issues for San Onofre and many of the Commission’s findings may apply to both nuclear power plants. Seismic surveys are planned for San Onofre this year by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at U.C. San Diego.

Meeting Location:

Please attend this meeting or contact the Commissioners and urge them to support the Coastal Commission staff recommendations to deny PG&E’s request. Tell the Commissioners the surveys are unnecessary and harmful.

• Sufficient seismic data exists to know both Diablo Canyon and San Onofre nuclear power plants are already at risk for earthquake damage from existing faults near the plants.
  • USGS says no scientist can predict the size of an earthquake and both California nuclear plants already sit near major earthquake faults.
  • “The information about how big an earthquake’s going to be may not be in the earth’s crust BEFORE the earthquake begins”, says USGS Pasadena seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones in her 9/2/2012 ABC interview.
• Diablo Canyon (as well as San Onofre) are out of compliance with the once-through cooling requirement.  It will cost billions of dollars to comply with the once-through cooling requirements, so this issue should be addressed before considering the unnecessary seismic surveys.
• California has 40% excess power without California’s nuclear power plants. According to California’s electric grid operator, the California Independent System Operator (ISO):
  • Diablo Canyon is not needed for energy or voltage support, so there is no need to relicense this plant.
  • The ISO has made preparations for another year without San Onofre. Both reactors have been off-line since January 31st, 2012 due to a radiation leak and decades of premature wear in newly installed defective steam generators.
• The sonic blasts will maim and kill large numbers of whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions, otters, and other marine life with high sonic sounds.
  • See Coastal Commission staff recommendations.
  • “Each of these underwater blasts will be at the volume level of a shock wave, that will instantly deafen, maim and possibly kill everything unfortunate enough to be in its path. A 240 dB blast is reportedly like being one foot away from the mouth of a large cannon. For a human, your ears, or what’s left of your ears, would probably never stop ringing. The consequences of experiencing this level of sound can only be presumed to be immediate and permanent deafness – if not worse. For sea life, beyond just broken eardrums, the transfer of low-frequency shock waves from water-air-water causes hemorrhaging of lungs and air-sacks, and will result in the death of marine mammals – whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions and otters – and fish.  Independent journalist Dave Gurney, noyonews.net
  • “… seismic testing is a threat not only to whales, but to all of us, because it allows PG&E to delay removal of the nuclear plant from the earthquake fault.” Stop the Diablo Canyon Seismic Testing

Please urge California state representatives to help ensure approval is denied for these unnecessary studies.

• Coastal Commission Contact Information
• Senator Barbara Boxer at 202-224-3553
• Contact other state elected officials, including Governor Brown

11/14/2012 Agenda

GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT. Public comments will be heard at 9:00 am for items not on the agenda, for no more than 30 minutes. For those unable to attend the early comment period, there will be additional comment time available later in the day.

COASTAL PERMIT APPLICATIONS. The Commission may vote at the conclusion of the public hearing, or it may continue the matter to a subsequent meeting. Time limits are determined by the Chair but generally are 15 minutes combined total time per side. The applicant may reserve some time for rebuttal after the opponents speak.

Agenda Item 13. COASTAL PERMIT APPLICATIONS. See AGENDA CATEGORIES. Attention: Items appearing in this section of the agenda may be moved to the Consent Calendar for this area by the Executive Director when, prior to taking up the Consent Calendar, staff and the applicant are in agreement on the staff recommendation. If an item is moved to the Consent Calendar it will be processed in the same manner as other Consent Calendar items (See AGENDA CATEGORIES) except that if that item is subsequently removed from the Consent Calendar by a vote of three or more commissioners, the item will be acted upon at the meeting in the order in which it originally appears on this Meeting Notice and in the manner Coastal Permit Applications are processed. The purpose of this procedural change is to expedite the Commission’s coastal development permit process.

a. Application No. E-11-029 (Taylor Mariculture, Humboldt Co.) Application of Taylor Mariculture to establish a shellfish seed cultivation operation on an existing pier facility at Arcata Bay, Humboldt County. (CT-SF)

b. Application No. E-12-005 and CC-027-12 (Pacific Gas & Electric Co., San Luis Obispo Co.) Application of PG&E to conduct a high energy three-dimensional geophysical survey employing use of air guns, hydrophones, and geophones in state and federal waters offshore San Luis Obispo County. (CT-SF)

Additional Resources

• PG&E, USGS disagree on Diablo Canyon fault danger,   San Francisco Chronicle 7/17/2011
• Stop the Diablo Canyon Seismic Testing (Facebook).
• NoyoNews.net
• Seashephard.org
• SanLuisObispo.com seismic survey articles
• Final Environmental Impact Report (State Lands Commission)
  • Appendix H – Marine Mammal Technical Report (Pages 59 – 121)
• Earthquake Risks – SanOnofreSafety.org
• Boom, Baby, Boom: The Environmental Impacts of Seismic Surveys  www.nrdc.org
• Pierce Brosnan: Don’t Let the Belugas Go Silent (video on seismic survey impact)
• Impacts of Seismic Surveys on Marine Mammals and Fish – AMCC
• PG&E’s Seismic Information
• Live marine traffic (www.marinetraffic.com) (search for vessel “Pacific Star”)
• CAL-SPAN.ORG – web streaming of California State meetings
• CA Coastal Commission 9/14/2012 – Diablo Canyon and San Onofre seismic surveys (video discussion starts at minute 21)
• Noyo News summary of 9/14/2012 Coastal Commission seismic surveys discussion
• Offshore seismic surveys may impair hearing and cause ear damage in marine fish and mammals FOE Norway 4/2007

California seismic planners want us to “drop, cover and hold on” as part of their Great ShakeOut earthquake drill for the expected and overdue 7.8 magnitude earthquake, yet they ignore the fact Southern California’s San Onofre nuclear power plant is designed for a 7.0 earthquake.  A 7.8 earthquake is 6 times more powerful than what San Onofre is designed to withstand.

Our public officials need to learn the lessons of Fukushima.  Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactors are still in meltdown, spreading radiation throughout the world and making large portions of Japan permanently uninhabitable.

• Lesson #1: Earthquakes (not just tsunamis) can cause a nuclear catastrophe.
• Lesson #2: Nuclear catastrophes result in ruined lives and abandoned cities.
• Lesson #3: Nuclear catastrophes can be prevented if early warnings are heeded.

Please contact your public officials and request they take action to ensure the safety of our community.

For a quick way to email them, go to www.TheGreatFallout.org

For other ways you can help and to locate contact information for your elected officials, go to the Volunteer section of the SanOnofreSafety.org website. Use this sample letter or modify to send your own personalized message.

Sample letter for your public officials

I am very concerned about the impact a major earthquake may have on our community, and I support efforts to ensure residents and businesses are well prepared for such an event. The Great California ShakeOut is an important component of ensuring community members know the risks and respond appropriately to help minimize the danger to themselves and others during a major seismic event. However, I was deeply troubled to learn that the Great California ShakeOut earthquake drill completely ignores the risk of an earthquake-induced nuclear accident at the San Onofre nuclear reactor site – a very real threat to the safety of our community since these reactors are not built to withstand an earthquake of the magnitude the faults around it may produce.

The San Onofre nuclear reactor site was built to withstand an earthquake of an approximately 7.0 magnitude. ShakeOut drill planners use the United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates for a 7.8 quake – that is more than six times the force of a 7.0 quake. The Newport/Inglewood fault is only 4 miles out to sea from San Onofre. According to the USGS this specific fault has a potential for a 7.5 to 8.0 earthquake. We do not need more seismic studies to tell us there is reason to be concerned.

As a civic leader, I respectfully request that you take action to ensure the safety of our community. San Onofre is currently offline due to severely damaged equipment. Edison proposes to restart one of the reactors to see how well it holds up without doing any repairs. They risk our well being while they gamble with damaged equipment which may now be even more vulnerable to earthquakes. Ensuring public safety requires an open transparent process and expert testimony before an independent judge.

I urge you to join others who have made calls, written letters of support or introduced resolutions like those recently passed in Del Mar, Laguna Beach, Santa Monica and other others requesting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) require Southern California Edison submit to the requisite license amendment process and an adjudicatory hearing before they are allowed to restart either reactor.

California’s electricity grid operator has plans to take us through another hot summer without San Onofre.  Now is the time to move to a safe, clean, reliable and cost-effective energy future. The aging, expensive and damaged San Onofre nuclear reactors are none of these things. Replacing San Onofre with energy efficiency programs and diversified renewables is not only safer, but also makes far more economic sense. We need to invest in the future, not in a dangerous nuclear reactor site built with five decade old designs.

For more information, including government and scientific documentation, go to SanOnofreSafety.org.

No risky restart says public at today’s NRC meeting on San Onofre.  NRC License amendment process and adjudicatory evidentiary hearing demanded to ensure safety.

Edison’s plan to restart the Unit 2 nuclear reactor safely is to watch for radiation leaks. That’s not a safety plan. That’s a nuclear experiment.

Restarting San Onofre with the the most defective steam generators in the nation is a recipe for nuclear disaster. We just went through nine months and a hot summer without any nuclear power — why take the risk when we don’t need the energy?

• San Clemente Green Statement for NRC meeting on 10-9-2012
• Statement of Friends of the Earth, NRDC and Committee To Bridge the Gap on NRC Public Meeting for San Onofre Nuclear Reactors
• San Onofre Steam Generator Problems and Edison’s Broken Promises
• Plugged Tubes Chart/License Amendment needed
• California ISO prepares for another potential summer without San Onofre 9/13/2012
• Excess power in California without nuclear energy
• Safety Complaint and Employee Retaliation Charts — worst record in nation
• Safety Summary Fact Sheet
• San Onofre’s new generators install – OC Register 12/24/2009

The new steam generators are designed to last longer, said Mike Wharton, manager of the steam-generator replacement project. ”They are designed for 40 years,” he said. “We expect we’ll actually be able to get 60 years out of them … better materials, better design. You learn over the course of years what works well and what doesn’t, and you try to build it into the next generation.”

• Additional resource material

San Onofre has the most defective steam generators in the nation. Edison said they were supposed to last 40 years, yet they failed within two years. The NRC says the only way to know if steam generators are not working correctly is if they release radiation.

The NRC has a history of lowering safety standards to keep old nuclear plants running.  Don’t allow them to do this to us. Failed steam generators can lead to a nuclear disaster.

We had no blackouts this summer with San Onofre off-line. And our electricity grid operator has plans to avoid blackouts next year.  Why live with this risk for energy we don’t need?

NRC data. Tube wear chart prepared by Committee to Bridge the Gap

“San Onofre Unit 2 and 3 are both very ill nuclear plants.  They are far, far outside the norm of national experience,” writes Daniel Hirsch, steam generator report co-author.  “Restarting either San Onofre reactor with crippled steam generators that have not been repaired or replaced would be a questionable undertaking at best.”  Hirsch is President of the Committee to Bridge the Gap.

The Sacramento Bee reports authorities are investigating a subsidiary of the New York investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co., which may have grabbed an extra $73 million during 2010 and 2011.

The California Independent System Operator, the Folsom-based agency that runs the state’s power grid and oversees last-minute electricity sales, has recovered $20 million from the company so far.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is investigating on California’s behalf, and the fate of the remaining $53 million claimed by the ISO isn’t clear.

The investigation became public when the commission sued JPMorgan.

The company denies any wrongdoing.

(Copyright 2012 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

Since the beginning we recognized that this would be an uphill battle. We were also aware that the false and misleading claims made by California’s Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) —claims that were required by law to be printed on the Initiative—of tens of billions of dollars per year in added costs to the state as a result of rolling blackouts due to the closure of these plants would make it very difficult to garner the grassroots support necessary to effectively move forward with a signature drive of this magnitude. Literally every major anti-nuclear organization in California and the U.S. opted out of supporting us as a result of the LAO analysis.

Fortuitously, the recent closure of San Onofre has proven the rolling blackout myth false, along with the outlandish claims of astronomical financial impacts to the state, effectively validating what we have said since the very beginning. Though these revelations occurred too late to undo the damage caused by the LAO analysis, they have breathed new life and new opportunity into our efforts to shutter these plants.

There is still a chance, through court action, that this issue could be placed on the November ballot. There are also many organizations that initially turned away from us that are now reevaluating the possibility of directing their resources towards the closure of California’s nuclear plants in the near future. Our campaign has helped educate the public and provide the foundation necessary to proceed with these efforts.

Thank you to all of our volunteers for their time and effort in gathering signatures. Your efforts have helped propel this crucial issue forward and will not have been made in vain.

San Onofre has been shut down since January after plant operators discovered radiation leaking into the air. The leak was caused by a tube rupture in one of the new Unit 3 steam generators. Reactor Unit 2 has been offline since January 9th.  Unit 3 has been offline since January 31st, less than one year after it was installed. Both units have premature steam generator tube wear.

No rolling blackouts are predicted for Southern California due to the shutdown.  California’s electric grid operator has developed a number of contingency plans to avoid blackouts. See “California ISO Contingency Plan“.  The annual ISO Transmission Plan states that with San Onofre offline, there are “no stability concerns under normal or emergency condition.”

Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen reviewed SCE and nuclear industry documents and found a series of cascading major design changes that lead to the steam generator failures:

Typical Combustion Engineering Steam Generator

• The redesign crammed almost 400 additional tubes into each of the generators.
  • These additional tubes required additional holes be drilled in the “tubesheet,” the critical radiation barrier that serves as an enormous foundation supporting the entire generator.
  • Making room for these additional tubes required the removal of the critical supporting “stay cylinder”. This support pillar was designed to secure the generator and prevent vibration – exactly the kind of vibration that seems to be behind the tube degradation.
  • All of these changes necessitated pressure and flow changes in the generator’s operation.

This Fairewinds Associates study, San Onofre Cascading Steam Generator Failures Created by Edison, is the second in a series commissioned by nuclear watchdog Friends of the Earth.

The study also confirms that both reactor Units 2 and 3 have identical specifications and were subject to identical operating conditions.  SCE has been trying to draw distinctions between the two reactors, but late yesterday admitted that Unit 2 showed “additional minor tube wear” that was “similar to the type of wear that was seen in Unit 3, but at a very low level.”

“Southern California Edison continues to try to downplay the issue, even as they finally admit the truth – there is no difference between reactors 2 and 3 and they have the same problems” said Shaun Burnie nuclear specialist to Friends of the Earth. “This whole crisis arose because of substantive changes made in the design and fabrication of key components. The NRC has to date adopted the Edison position that there is a difference between reactors 2 and 3. That was always wrong and irresponsible and now we have confirmation from Edison about what our analysis has been saying for weeks. Here’s a tip: when your nuclear reactor is springing leaks and radioactive pipes are deteriorating twenty times faster than they should, it’s a big deal, and no amount of nuclear spin by Edison or the NRC can hide that fact,” said Burnie.

The report notes that these dramatic changes were all portrayed to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as an exact replacement of the original steam generators. The original generators lasted over 20 years, while the new ones were falling apart within less than 20 months. The report also found no difference between Units 2 and 3.

“In Fairewinds’ opinion, the vibration between the tubes caused the steam generator leaks and degradation… and was due to the simultaneous implementation of numerous unreviewed fabrication and design changes to the replacement steam generators by Edison/MHI. The NRC can no longer justify its position of treating the problems at the reactors as separate. A root cause analysis of both reactors – not just unit 3 was always necessary – now Edison have provided the evidence as to why,” author of the report Arnie Gundersen stated.

Gundersen is a 40-year veteran of the nuclear power industry. A former nuclear industry senior vice president, he earned his Bachelor and Master Degrees in nuclear engineering, holds a nuclear safety patent, and was a licensed reactor operator. During his nuclear industry career, Gundersen managed and coordinated projects at 70-nuclear power plants around the country.

Friends of the Earth and local citizen’s groups released a new video ad campaign last week targeting Southern California Edison. The ad calls on citizens to let the utility know that their families come first – and that they must not restart the troubled San Onofre nuclear reactors currently facing serious questions about safety and secrecy. The citizen’s groups include Citizens Oversight Projects, Committee to Bridge the Gap, Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles, Residents Organized for a Safe Environment (ROSE), San Clemente Green, SanOnofreSafety.org, and the Peace Resource Center of San Diego.

• 2012-04-06 Press Release - San Onofre Nuclear Crisis  - Community members to NRC: Robust, transparent and thorough investigation of urgent safety problems is essential
  • Steam Generator Failures at San Onofre – Fairewinds Summary
  • Steam Generator Failures at San Onofre – Fairewinds – Full Report
  • California has Excess Power without Nuclear (no blackouts) and Freeman Letter to ISO President
  • Safety Allegations (Complaints) Charts
  • CNI Fact Sheet
  • Fukushima USA and San Onofre Fact Sheet

Other Resources

• Evacuation Map and Tsunami Inundation Map
• Earthquake Faults near San Onofre
• Arnie Gunderson – Fairewinds – Statement about Steam Generators 04-11-2012
• San Onofre’s new generators install – OC Register 12/24/2009
• California Nuclear Initiative petition
• For more information, go to SanOnofreSafety.org

• Return Huntington Beach [gas  plants] 3 & 4 to service
• Accelerate Barre-Ellis transmission upgrade
• Accelerate completion of Sunrise Powerlink [implemented 6/17/2012] and related outage planning
• Fully fund Flex Alerts and restart CPUC 20/20 program
• Fully utilize available demand response (e.g., as SCE air conditioner cycling)
• Seek additional military and public agency demand response
• Take longer-term steps to increase available demand response system-wide

3/22/2012 California ISO audio of Briefing on Summer 2012 Operations Preparedness

This 3/20/12 letter from S. David Freeman to the President of the ISO, Bob Foster, supports this:

“…[Bob], you and I have discussed how simple load management such as cycling air conditioners can reduce peak loads by large amounts. And you know we have all worked together to assure that blackouts never again happen in California. Under the leadership of the ISO, California is not and cannot be one power plant away from rolling blackouts…

… [the ISO should] put in place the efficiency and load management programs, that will in fact ‘keep the lights on’.  

With that approach the ‘worst’ that can happen is that consumers would save a bunch of money.

The problems at San Onofre are serious enough to require the NRC to dispatch a team to the plant site to discover the cause of the problems. They don’t need the pressure caused by the fear of rolling blackouts fanned by the spokesman for the ISO. On the contrary both the utility and the NRC need to be encouraged to take all the time needed to find out the full extent of the problem and fix it if that is possible and cost effective.”

Print California has Excess Power without Nuclear – No Blackouts

The recent closure of SONGS shows that the LAO’s fiscal analysis for our initiative is incorrect to the extent that it predicts rolling blackouts costing the state tens of billions annually. These predicted blackouts have not occurred with the recent SONGS closure. Why? Because the LA Basin has ample energy without SONGS.

The Public Utility Commission (PUC) and Cal ISO, report “The LA Basin Local Area has 12,309 MW of capacity. It requires 10,600 MW to maintain reliability. SONGS, at 2,340 MW, is critically located in the southern part of this Local Area.” (Senate Energy, Utilities, and Communications Committee Informational Hearing: After Japan: Nuclear Power Plant Safety in California, April 14, 2011). Thus, without SONGS, there is still 9,969 MW of power available in the LA Basin, leaving only 631 MW to be replaced to “maintain reliability.” (12,309 MW current capacity – 2,340 MW generated by SONGS = 9,969 MW.) As the recent closure has shown, and as one might expect, the 631 MW has proved to be readily replaced, and the suggestion that SONGS is somehow critically positioned has been disproved, as well.

In response, the industry has changed its argument to say that blackouts would only be expected during a few peak days in the summer months. However, the LAO made no distinction for season (neither does the PUC report quoted above), and appears to have premised its conclusion of a tens of billions cost for rolling blackouts on year-round occurrences. The LAO also recognized in its analysis that the legislature would take emergency actions to bring new power sources on line, if necessary, to avoid blackouts.

It is also important to note that the LAO, in response to our Records Act request, could not produce one document from any state or industry source stating such rolling blackouts would result from closing our state’s nuclear power plants. In their letters to the LAO concerning the fiscal effect of this initiative, the California Energy Commission and CAISO specifically omitted any mention of rolling blackouts or the associated costs. Purportedly, the LAO based its conclusion that blackouts would occur on verbal sources from CAISO – sources whom refused to be named or make such statements on the record.

Clearly, the nuclear industry is changing their statistics as circumstances prove them incorrect. Had the industry initially reported to the LAO that grid instability would cause blackouts only during the peak hours of a few summer days, if at all, the fiscal analysis would have been significantly different.

The problem that required such an extreme solution is the massive scale at which everything takes place in California. The ISO, for example, manages about 85 percent of California’s power load, totaling more than 286 billion kWh of energy per year across more than 25,000 miles of line. Employees are inundated with data, said Jim McIntosh, an executive director at California ISO, so they needed something that would present it to them in a useful manner.

What Space-Time Insights’ software does is present data however it will be most beneficial for that customer’s particular needs. It maps data — from wherever and whenever it’s from — in-memory for fast access, organized geospatially as well as by time. The result might be the popular map view, or it might be any number of heat maps, correlation, trending or any other number of more-classical data views. Additionally, Space-Time’s Steve Erlich told me, customers can customize the application how they see fit to create their own visualizations, functions, data workflows or other capabilities.

McIntosh says his team used to get data updates at 4-second intervals, but now it gets updates by the millisecond, and presented in a very intuitive manner that shows and tells what’s going on. He analogized the switch to the Space-Time system to making the move from x-rays to MRIs. Other ISOs that have toured the control have been very impressed, he added, because it’s likely the most state-of-the-art in North America, if not the world.

The California ISO began using Space-Time in 2008 to combat wildfires in San Diego, but now uses it for a wide variety of tasks. To combat wildfires, McIntosh explained, the ISO is able to see where wildfires are and how they might move potentially hours earlier than previously possible, which lets it manage the power supply accordingly. It can proactively move power flow off of lines that might be affected by fire to protect from a future power loss and other damage that might occur should a fire hit live power lines.

Another use case for which the new system is ideal is making sure California’s grid is using the right data source at the right time. The ISO monitors data from about 4,500 nodes to determine what energy source will be the cheapest for any given location at any given time. This is made all the more difficult because of strong California mandates around using certain percentages of renewable energy. If wind conditions pick up and make that an ideal source for a certain location, it’s the ISO’s job — in the names of both economics and compliance — to make sure that wind isn’t being wasted.

As for Space-Time Insight, which was formed in 2005 and first got funded in 2008, it’s becoming very popular with utilities worldwide, Erlich said, but it’s expanding fast. Oil and gas, transportation and other industries that derive value from advanced visualization and real-time analysis are buying its software, and the company just signed up its first new media customer. Although who it is and how it’s using the Space-Time software are still a secret.

CA ISO’s outlook for this week was possible stage 1 and 2 alerts, with unlikely chance of stage 3 alerts:

24-Hour Ahead Outlook for Tuesday, July 8 Flex Alert Day
High temperatures are forecast throughout the state and region. The California ISO is not anticipating any shortages, but energy demand is expected to be high and Californians are urged to reduce energy usage between 3:00 and 6:00 p.m.
• Stage 1: possible Stage 2: unlikely Stage 3: unlikely
• Forecast peak demand: 48,810 megawatts around 4:00 p.m.
48-Hour Ahead Outlook for Wednesday, July 9 Flex Alert Day
The hot weather is forecast to intensify and peak energy demand will continue to climb as well. The California ISO is urging reduced energy usage between 3:00 and 6:00 p.m.
• Stage 1: possible Stage 2: possible Stage 3: unlikely
72-Hour Ahead Outlook for Thursday, July 10 Flex Alert Day
Thursday is forecast to be the hottest day of the week and energy demand could be near record setting levels. Conservation will be very important.
• Stage 1: possible Stage 2: possible Stage 3: unlikely

The stages are:

Stage 1 Emergency – Consumers are urged to reduce their use of electricity voluntarily to avoid severe conditions.
Stage 2 Emergency - Voluntary interruption of service to select customers is possible to avoid more severe conditions.
Stage 3 Emergency - Consumers are advised that involuntary interruptions of service have begun and will continue until the emergency has passed.  (aka rolling blackouts – eek!)

With the heat boiling and temps around 99 – 100, its not surprising at all that peak demand is so high.  But in order to avoid stage 3 rolling blackouts, we are urged to conserve power any way we can.

Riverside Public Utilities conservation tips that you can use right now are:

SET THERMOSTAT TO 78º ON HOT DAYS. On days over 100º set it to 84º. Use room fans to feel even cooler.
SHADE YOUR AIR CONDITIONING CONDENSER. But be careful not to block the free flow of air to the unit. (That tip is for you, Fox!)
USE HEAT PRODUCING APPLIANCES like dishwashers, clothes dryers, and irons in the morning or after 8pm.
KEEP DRAPES, BLINDS AND SHADES CLOSED to keep the sun’s rays out of your home in warm weather.

Keep an eye on the Conserve-O-Meter