Nuclear Event – Maryland : Reactors at nuclear power plant in southern Maryland shut down last week after an electrical malfunction

Nuclear regulators send inspectors to Calvert Cliffs

Reactors at nuclear power plant in southern Maryland shut down last week after an electrical malfunction

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By Jamie Smith Hopkins, The Baltimore Sun

7:50 p.m. EST, January 27, 2014

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Monday that it is conducting a special inspection at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Southern Maryland after an electrical malfunction caused the two reactors there to shut down.

The plant, which restarted both reactors over the weekend, suffered the shutdown after snow and ice during a storm Jan. 21 apparently affected a ventilation louver filter and caused a short circuit. After the electrical supply system shut down, so did several plant systems and components that rely on electricity, the nuclear regulatory agency said Monday.

Those components included motors for moving control rods and water circulating pumps for the Unit 2 reactor, the agency said. The main turbine control circuit for the Unit 1 reactor also malfunctioned after the electricity loss.

Both units shut down as a result, with “no impacts on public health and safety,” the agency said.

The three-person inspection team began working at the plant Monday, the commission said.

“We want to gain a better understanding of the chain of events that caused both of the reactors to simultaneously shut down and equipment anomalies subsequent to the plant trips,” said Bill Dean, the commission’s administrator for the region that includes Maryland, in a statement. “This inspection is designed to shed additional light on not only why the outages happened but how the plant operators handled them.”

A Constellation Energy Nuclear Group spokesman said in an email that federal reviews after shutdowns are common, adding that the company welcomed the inspection at its plant.

“Operators followed their training and performed well during the shutdowns,” said Kory Raftery, the spokesman. “The site’s multiple safety systems responded as designed.”

But Neil Sheehan, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman, said such inspections are not common.

Read More Here

Related

• Control rod problem shuts down Calvert Cliffs reactor

• Electric malfunction shuts down Calvert Co. power plant

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• Inspections find flaws in nuclear plant mechanism during scheduled outage

• “NRC inspectors have been reviewing the plant’s inspections and assessments and are reviewing the licensee’s replacement and repair plans, which will be completed prior to plant startup,” said Viktoria Mitlyng, senior public affairs officer for the NRC in this region. “The NRC will continue to evaluate and validate the licensee’s response to the issue to ensure plant safety.”

  The plant shut down Jan. 19 to replace 64 fuel assemblies and conduct maintenance, tests and inspections on equipment including the reactor vessel and its two low-pressure turbines.

  The facility remains offline.

  The control rod drive mechanism housings are part of the reactor coolant system boundary designed to prevent reactor coolant from leaking, Mitlyng said. There was no evidence of leakage.

  Read More Here

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• During Palisades refueling shutdown, flaws discovered in control rod drive housings
• Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant shut down due to electric malfunction

Nuclear Event – State of Maryland, [Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant] : One of two reactors at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in southern Maryland was shut down again Tuesday, the second unplanned outage in the past two weeks

Earth Watch Report  –  Nuclear  Event

Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant Courtesy of Wikipedia

 

Location of Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant courtesy  of Wikipeia

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Today

Nuclear Event

USA

State of Maryland, [Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant]

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Nuclear Event in USA on Wednesday, 22 May, 2013 at 03:13 (03:13 AM) UTC.

Description

One of two reactors at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in southern Maryland was shut down again Tuesday, the second unplanned outage in the past two weeks. Plant operators powered down Unit 2 manually around 5:30 a.m. after a pump that feeds water to a steam generator shut down because of high vibrations, according to Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The cause of the pump’s vibrations appears to be a failed mechanical coupling between the pump’s motor and the pump, he said. Sheehan and Kory Raftery, spokesman for Constellation Energy Nuclear Group, said the manual shutdown went smoothly and posed no safety risks for plant workers or the public. Raftery said the reactor was in “stable condition.” Both spokesmen said Tuesday’s shutdown appears unrelated to the unplanned “scram” of the same reactor on May 8. In the earlier case, according to accounts from Constellation and the NRC, an electrical malfunction caused some valves to close that feed steam to the turbine. The turbine then shut down, prompting the reactor itself to shut down automatically to prevent the buildup of steam pressure in the cooling system. The reactor was out of service for five days, according to Raftery, while the valves were being worked on and tested. Plant personnel also installed electrical monitors to check for further problems, he said. Unit 2 will remain shut down until an investigation of the latest malfunction is completed, repairs are made and the system is fully tested, the Constellation spokesman said. Unit 1, the other reactor at the plant in Lusby, is operating at 100 percent power.

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Calvert Cliffs reactor shut down

 

Second unplanned nuclear outage in two weeks

 

 

By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun

6:43 p.m. EDT, May 21, 2013

One of two reactors at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in southern Maryland was shut down again Tuesday, the second unplanned outage in the past two weeks.

Plant operators powered down Unit 2 manually around 5:30 a.m. after a pump that feeds water to a steam generator shut down because of high vibrations, according to Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The cause of the pump’s vibrations appears to be a failed mechanical coupling between the pump’s motor and the pump, he said.

Sheehan and Kory Raftery, spokesman for Constellation Energy Nuclear Group, said the manual shutdown went smoothly and posed no safety risks for plant workers or the public. Raftery said the reactor was in “stable condition.”

Read Full Article here

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ANNAPOLIS, Md. —Tens of thousands of electricity customers lost power in Anne Arundel County late Thursday night — but some thought it was the end the world.

 Power Outage

credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

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21.12.2012

Power Outage

USA

State of Maryland, [Annapolis region]

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Power Outage in USA on Friday, 21 December, 2012 at 09:27 (09:27 AM) UTC.

Description

The lights went out in the Annapolis area Thursday night as BG&E lost two main feeder lines, according to a BG&E spokesperson. As a result, some 50,000 customers lost power at around 9 p.m. The areas affected were the city of Annapolis, Westgate and Cedar Park. BG&E has crews investigating the cause of the the incident but as of 10:45 p.m., had not determined what caused the problem. BG&E did not make an estimated time of restoration of power. The feeder lines that failed feed several substations in the Annapolis area, according to the BG&E spokesperson, who said that it is possible that when the power failed, the substations also went offline. Because some equipment in the substations makes what sounds like an explosion when the large fuses blow, residents may have heard the noise when fuses blew, which also causes light as well as noise, the spokesperson said.

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Tens of thousands lose power in Crownsville, Annapolis areas

3 fire stations worked on backup generators until power restored

The outage occurred just before 9 p.m. Thursday in an area west of Annapolis. Anne Arundel County fire officials said the power outage extended from Crownsville to Annapolis.

Baltimore Gas and Electric said Friday that a 115-kilovolt transmission line leading into a substation in the Best Gate area apparently fell at about the same time as all the sightings, causing the huge flashes of light and knocking out the power.

“With high voltage lines such as the transmission lines we saw last night, you will see a rather large flash in the sky,” BGE spokeswoman Rachael Lighty said.

While it may seem like a major fix, BGE crews actually had it fixed within hours.

“It’s very rare for us to experience an outage on a transmission line. It’s something we take very seriously. We were out there immediately and we got our customers back by 1 a.m.,” Lighty said.

BGE estimated roughly 50,000 to 70,000 customers lost power as a result of the incident. By 7 a.m. Friday, a majority of customers had been restored, with only about 1,700 outages still reported.

Fire officials said three county fire stations operated on backup power during the outage. No injuries were reported. Officials at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis said the hospital was operating on generator power.

Because of the timing of the outage, some people literally thought it was the end of the world. (End of the world apocalypse on Dec. 21)

Bill Fritz and others in the Best Gate and Cedar Park areas saw a bright light in the sky at about the time the power went out.

 

“The sky lit up like I’d never seen before — very bright, different colors,” Fritz said.

Fritz explained seeing flashing blue, white, green and yellow lights before total darkness that left some to wonder if they Mayans had it right. Others, like Brian Rose, thought science fiction was becoming reality.

“Of course, my son had been joking about the Mayan calendar all week. So, I knew it was in the back of his mind, and I’m trying to keep it together, but in my mind, I was waiting to be vaporized and turned into a pile of dust like in a cartoon,” he said. “(The light) kept on getting brighter and brighter, different colors and the humming noise was getting closer. I was thinking UFO.”

Despite the actual cause, the light show was quite a scare and something no one who saw it will ever forget.

“We’re all laughing about it this morning, but a lot of people just, it was amazing, unbelievable,” Rose said.

Heading into the weekend, BGE is warning of more possible power outages due to high winds.

 Watch Video Here

 

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