More Firsts for First Energy

[tw]

Excerpt from the Booth Report presented recently to the Governor of NJ concerning First Energy Corporation.

In July and August 2002 several of JCP&L’s customers residing in the vicinity of the Herbertsville Substation located in the Township of Brick, Ocean County, complained about experiencing tingling sensations (stray voltages) when attempting to enjoy certain outdoor activities such as use of swimming pools, hot tubs and outdoor showers.

During June and July 2003, JCP&L experienced two major events in the communities north of Island Beach State Park and into other sections of Dover Township and in Monmouth County. One event affected 26,000 customers throughout a two-day period during the fourth of July weekend and there were sporadic outages at various times in Seaside Heights, Seaside Park, Lavallette, South Seaside Park, Berkley Township and Ortley Beach and Normandy Beach sections of Dover Township. The other event left thousands of customers in Monmouth Bounty region without electricity. JCP&L filed an expedited report on July 16,

(spelling error as published in the report)

For shore businesses, the 4 July weekend was a complete loss - the weekend they make big money. First Energy knew they had problems on numerous previous weekends. One blackout occured during a meeting by First Energy's President Anthony Alexander (a lawyer) with the local residents - which he (the lawyer) instead blamed on local municipality power lines.

Finally the NJ Governor ordered First Energy to install emergency generators; to stop cost controlling. Blackouts ended because even the governor is a better electrical engineer. Reasons why those blackouts occurred still remain.

The Booth report stated in engineering term why these failures happen and cited some serious deficiiencies in the system that require immediate attention such as transformers operating at up to 125% rated capacity and other captial improvements that require First Energy to spend money.

Of course First Energy also created the NE blackout that same summer. This company so instituted costs controls that even their own OH distributon grid operators denied all day that they had problems - did not know all day that they were created a NE blackout - until lights went out in the control room.

The NRC determined three nuclear reactors that had a potential Three Mile Island type failure. NRC said these reactors must shutdown and fix this problem immediately. Two others did so. But First Energy balked. They instead arraigned a $450,000 fund raiser for Bush-Cheney. Therefore Davis-Besse (outside of Toledo) did not have to shutdown until ready for refueling. When they finally did shutdown for refueling, a hole was found in the reactor vessel. Not only did they have a potential Three Mile Island type problem, they also had, well ... MSNBC tells it better:

Largest fine ever sought against nuke plant
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposed a record $5.45 million fine Thursday against the operator of a nuclear plant where leaking acid ate nearly all the way through a 6-inch-thick steel cap on the reactor vessel.

The NRC said FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. restarted the Davis-Besse plant in 2000 without completing a cleaning and inspection of the reactor vessel head, then misled the agency about what it had done.

The leaking boric acid was found two years later during a routine inspection — the most extensive corrosion ever seen at a U.S. nuclear reactor.

.

[tw]

In a second article, MSNBC reports other events:

Accident among top five since 1979, regulators say
Since the 1979 accident at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island, only three other events at nuclear plants had a higher probability of causing a meltdown than the corrosion at Davis-Besse, the report said. These events were:

The 1985 breakdown of feedwater pumps necessary to cool the nuclear core at the Davis-Besse plant, a seven out of 100 chance of core damage. ...

The 1981 damage ... at the Brunswick plant near Southport, N.C ...

The 1991 ... injection pump at the Shearon Harris plant southwest of Raleigh, N.C., ...