The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it wants Tennessee Valley Authority managers to outline how they would respond to safety concerns voiced by the operations staff at the Watts Bar nuclear generating station after inspectors found some employees “did not feel free to raise safety concerns.”
“It is extremely important that all nuclear plant employees feel free to raise safety issues with their managers and with the NRC without fear of retaliation,” NRC Region II Administrator Cathy Haney said in a statement.
Inspectors at Watts Bar, where the TVA is about to bring Unit 2 into commercial service, said “there were indications that license operators may have received undue influence and direction from TVA staff outside the control room.”
More: Chattanooga Times Free Press
Obama Administration Blocks Offshore Atlantic Drilling
Reversing its earlier position, the Obama administration is not going to allow drilling for oil and natural gas in the Atlantic Ocean off several southern states. The Department of the Interior had earlier defined a lease area on the continental shelf about 50 miles offshore, stretching from Virginia to Georgia.
While many governors of the impacted states supported drilling, environmentalists were opposed. More than 1 million comments flooded the Interior Department during the public comment session.
Jacqueline Savitz, vice president of advocacy group Oceana’s U.S. Oceans Executive Committee, said that “with this decision, coastal communities have won a ‘David vs. Goliath’ fight against the richest companies on the planet, and that is a cause for tremendous optimism for the well-being of future generations.”
More: NPR
Study Shows Solar to Cost Generators $2B
The rise of rooftop solar among residential customers will cost power generators $2 billion in revenue by 2019, according to a recent study by industry consultant ICF International.
ICF said that grid operators in the eastern U.S. plan on cutting the amount of electricity they purchase from conventional generators by about 1,400 MW beginning in 2019. A similar trend is happening in Germany, where E.ON SE and other companies are scrapping fossil-fueled plants and dropping plans for new ones in response to a renewable-energy building boom.
PJM and ISO-NE have included solar generation growth in their system estimates for 2019, the first year they have done so. The loss by traditional generators to solar is estimated to be about $716 million in 2019 in ISO-NE, $754 million in PJM and $523 million in NYISO.
More: Bloomberg Business
Mass. Officials Ask NRC for Local Voice in Pilgrim Decomm
The Massachusetts congressional delegation has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to provide an opportunity for state and local officials to comment on the decommissioning procedures at nuclear generating stations, especially Entergy’s Pilgrim station.
Entergy announced in the fall that it would be closing the plant by June 2019. Decommissioning plans need to be filed with and approved by the NRC. But the delegation, led by Rep. William Keating, said local officials should have a say in the plans.
“The decommissioning of a nuclear power plant has an enormous impact on the state and communities hosting the plant,” the elected officials wrote in a letter to NRC Chairman Stephen Burns.
More: Wicked Local
Obama Administration to Send Relief for Coal Areas
The federal government and the Appalachian Regional Commission announced they will spend $65.8 million in areas hit hardest by the decline of the coal industry.
The funds will be disbursed in grants of $500,000 to $1.5 million and are earmarked for creating jobs, workforce training and economic partnerships. About $45 million is expected to be handed out in fiscal year 2016.
The initiative is being funded by the Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization (POWER), created by the Obama administration.
More: Pittsburgh Business Times
Feds to Boost Pipeline Safety in Wake of Accidents
The Department of Transportation is proposing regulations designed to further improve natural gas pipeline safety in the wake of a number of accidents, including a 2010 California explosion that killed eight and injured more than 50. The rules would increase the number of mandatory inspections for rural lines and for new lines in gas-drilling fields.
While the rules would also expand pressure testing requirements for older gas lines that had been exempt, the department stopped short of requiring automatic emergency cut-off valves. While such valves could prevent some catastrophic events, such as the San Bruno, Calif., break that destroyed 38 homes, the natural gas industry argued that it would be too expensive to outfit lines with such valves. The cost would be between $100,000 to $1 million per valve.
The rules would expand federal regulation to cover “gathering lines,” or lines that collect oil or gas from wells and delivers them to storage facilities or transmission systems. Nearly 70,000 miles of gathering lines are currently exempt from federal oversight.
More: The Associated Press
States Again Asking SCOTUS To Overturn EPA’s MATS
Twenty states have joined in a brief that asks the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. The court has already found that the rules were improperly implemented but let them stand while it ordered the Obama administration to find a way to fix them.
States, led by Michigan, say EPA is illegally and prematurely enforcing the rules before a final decision has been made on them. “What happens when a federal agency promulgates a rule without first receiving authority from Congress?” the states ask in their brief.
Some coal-fired plants have already shut down in anticipation of being unable to meet the stringent standards.
More: The Hill
Poll Finds Americans Turning Against Nuclear Power
A Gallup survey released Friday shows that 54% of American’s dislike nuclear energy, the first time a majority has weighed in against atomic power. Anti-nuclear sentiment is up 11 points compared to last year, when 43% were opposed.
The Gallup poll has tracked American views on nuclear energy since 1994. The high point was in 2010, when 62% favored it.
More: The Hill
