Brattleboro Reformer
February 27, 2007
By Bob Audette

BRATTLEBORO -- The last argument against Vermont Yankee's extended power boost was dismissed by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Monday. The New England Coalition had originally started with seven arguments -- or contentions -- about why it felt the power uprate for the nuclear power plant in Vernon should not be approved.

That list had been winnowed down to the one contention which the board dismissed.

Entergy applied for the uprate in 2004. It was approved March 2006. In May of last year, the plant reached its new power level of 120 percent, from 1,593 megawatts to 1,912 megawatts.

The coalition had contended that the "uprate" should not be granted unless "large transient testing" was conducted.

Those tests are intended to show that the plant will operate "in accordance with design specifications both during normal steady state conditions and ... during and following anticipated operational occurrences, such as main steam isolation valve closures and a generator load rejection," according to the decision released Monday.

"We have said our uprate was grounded in NRC regulations," said Rob Williams, spokesman for the power plant, which is owned by Entergy.

Williams said the plant's "power ascension testing," was done "consistent with our conservative operating philosophy. The NEC was clearly wrong in its interpretation of NRC regulations regulating power ascension testing and the ASLB upheld that view."

Though the group had a right to bring its concerns to the board, he said, "this resolves the issue and our focus is on operating the plant safely and reliably."

A spokesman for the watchdog group said he was not surprised by the decision.

"Entergy spent millions of dollars deflecting our safety concerns and employed a 900-attorney international law firm to oppose us," wrote Ray Shadis, in a press release. In addition, he wrote, "NRC's legal staff of 60 attorneys always weighs in against the public interest groups no matter if the licensee's application is complete or incomplete."

The coalition argued that Entergy had not shown why it should be exempted from the requirement to test safety systems in a full-scale test in the event of electrical failure leading to generator load rejection or rapid closure of the plant's main steam isolation valves, said Shadis. In a valve closure situation, the safety valves, which prevent fission products from the reactor from being released into the steam system outside of the reactor, close down, forcing an emergency shutdown, or SCRAM.

A valve transient test is used to determine "how the reactor, reactor control system and steam system will perform in the event of an MSIV transient."

A generator load transient occurs when "the electrical output from the nuclear power plant's generators suddenly has no place to go."

But the ASLB ruled that industry experience with boiling water reactors similar to those at Yankee, as well as the operating record of the nuclear power plant, precluded the need to conduct the tests requested by the coalition.

In its decision the board wrote that the "operating experience at VYNPS," modifications made as part of the uprate process and component testing "all indicate that the EPU will not introduce new thermal or hydraulic phenomena that warrant conducting ... transient tests."

"The ultimate factual and legal issue in this case may be summarized as whether ... Entergy has adequately demonstrated that the VYNPS structures, systems and components will perform satisfactorily under uprated conditions" without the tests, wrote the board in its decision. "Entergy and (NRC) staff provided ample evidence that the industry operating experience at analogous boiling water reactor plants indicated that large transient testing ... is not needed."

Entergy argued that the tests weren't necessary, said Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The ASLB "agreed that based on industry experience and based on information received through this process, Entergy was able to demonstrate they could safely shut down this reactor without doing large transient testing."

New England Coalition has 15 days in which to appeal the board's decision to the NRC commission. However, said Diana Sidebotham, the group's president, "we have limited resources and right now we are building a legal fund to represent the public's interests in the license renewal case, currently before a similar Atomic Safety and Licensing Board."

Despite the ruling, Shadis said he was proud of the work the coalition had done to force Entergy to look more closely at its safety systems.

"I am satisfied that we made the entire proposition of uprate just a little less dangerous," he said, forcing Entergy and the NRC "to look at safety and engineering issues in depth and detail that they never anticipated."

At each stage, every element in the process was checked, rechecked and then checked again before continuing toward the goal of raising Vermont Yankee's capacity from 540 MW to 650 MW. The standards employed by Entergy not only met the stringent safety standards required by the NRC- it exceeded them.

Vermont Yankee was designed with multiple and redundant safety systems and is equipped with industry-leading safety measures to prevent incident. The plant's features include housing the nuclear reactor in leak tight containment domes that are several-feet-thick, steel-reinforced concrete lined with a stainless-steel inner shell.