Oil Spill Poses Risk to Gulf Power Plants ...

[spin]

Gulf Prepares for Possible Blackouts

Published: Tuesday, 22 Jun 2010 | 11:14 AM ET

Blackouts are one more possible problem related to the BP oil spill that residents of the Gulf of Mexico region may have to negotiate.

If that happens, the power outages have the potential to impact homes and businesses from western Louisiana to eastern Florida.

“We began to take note of this about a week after the incident occurred,” said Vincent Dolan, president & CEO of Progress Energy .

Other power companies have been taking precautionary measures, too.

To prevent oil from getting into the plants through intake canals, companies have installed booms in the rivers leading from the gulf to the canals. To avert contamination from oil-soiled ship hulls, which deliver fuel such as coal to power the plants, the companies are stocking up on the fuel.

“It can actually damage the cooling towers, and it could ultimately cause one of our plants to go offline,” said Sandy Sims, Gulf Power manager of public affairs, who spoke to CNBC from the Crist Generating Plant in Pensacola.

The Progress corporation has boomed intake canals at four of its facilities on Florida’s west coast—including those at Crystal River, Anclote and Tarpon Springs—and skimmers are standing by.

It’s a plan Dolan sees as preventing shutdowns. Even in the worst-case scenario, he still doesn’t expect the oil spill will impact his clients with regard to electrical services. “I think we would have sufficient reserve capacity where we would transfer power with other utilities.”

Sims added that the company has another plan, so that the gulf catastrophe doesn’t affect its customers. It will make a claim for money from the $20 billion compensation fund, set up by BP last week, rather than impose a financial burden on customers. emphasis added
http://www.cnbc.com/id/37844640/

Nothing like having a power blackout during the heat of a Florida summer. Especially when the outage is a result of greed by an oil company who put profits above safety.

Of course I could add that many residents of Florida could be impacted by a loss of wages caused by a blackout.

Lets hope that the oil booms and other measures the Florida power companies are taking work better than the tactics used to protect the wetlands in Louisiana.

[Catherina]

1. Nuclear too will be impacted in the same way.

Scott Portzline, Security Consultant, Three Mile Island Alert, Harrisburg, PA:

“SO WHAT HAPPENS IF GULF OIL GETS INTO THE LOOP CURRENT AND GETS TO MIAMI AND EAST COAST FLORIDA BEACHES?

Yes, that’s a real concern, especially if it is submerged oil at the huge quantities that scientists are describing. Who is monitoring the submerged oil? That’s a very difficult task with the ever-changing currents in the Gulf of Mexico. There are reportedly thousands of oil plumes now. The head of the U. S. Coast Guard describes the spill as being ‘thousands of spills.’

I talked with a spokesman at the NRC this week who said he wasn’t aware of any active monitoring of oily water going to the Crystal River nuclear power plant and he didn’t know how deep the canals are. The more questions I asked, the more I found out that the NRC is perhaps overly confident. But I think the public deserves specific, detailed answers to who is watching out for nuclear power plants that could be affected by the BP oil spill. That’s why we wrote our letter with the press release.

I also just saw that the Dept. of Homeland Security has written a letter to Congress saying their Incident Response Team is running out of money. They have gone through $93 million for the DHS response team and British Petroleum has earned profits of $93 million/day since this disaster began – or something like that. BP has not reimbursed our government even for that amount. This is an international incident on many levels ranging from the environment to economies!

COULD YOU SUMMARIZE WHAT EAST COAST NUCLEAR REACTORS OF SOUTHERN FLORIDA MIGHT BE JEOPARDIZED BY OIL IN THE LOOP CURRENT?

The St. Lucie nuclear power plant and the Turkey Point nuclear power plant each has two reactors. If oil-contaminated water goes into their water intake system unmonitored, unknown, it could foul some of the safety systems that are necessary to cool the condensate that is the secondary loop in a reactor. That is water that is coming from the generators in the form of hot steam and it has to be cooled down and turned back into water. There is another third loop that goes out to the cooling towers. What we’re concerned about is that without proper monitoring of the oil plumes underwater, the nuclear plants could continue running and not be shut down as they should be. Oily water would foul up the systems and cause an emergency situation. In fact, that water if contaminated with oil is used to cool some of the emergency systems and safety systems.

And none of us know what the oil dispersants are going to do to the chemistry of the nuclear power plants and their water systems. The best answer is to shut down the nuclear power plants before the oil plumes get to them and the only way to do that is to properly monitor the submerged oil plumes and surface slicks.

We’ve seen time after time in the past two months since the oil rig exploded how the planning has not been coordinated or adequate. So we’re hoping the public will get some answers by our writing our letter and press release. It’s not an alarmist letter. We are not saying there is going to be a Three Mile Island event. The chances of that are pretty small, but nonetheless, it could happen if the NRC does not take the proper actions.”

...

http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1719&category=Environment

[spin]

2. Oil contaminated water could cause an "emergency situation" for a nuclear reactor...

Let's hope they have better luck shutting the reactor down in an emergency than BP did shutting the oil leak down.

I talked with a spokesman at the NRC this week who said he wasn’t aware of any active monitoring of oily water going to the Crystal River nuclear power plant and he didn’t know how deep the canals are. The more questions I asked, the more I found out that the NRC is perhaps overly confident. But I think the public deserves specific, detailed answers to who is watching out for nuclear power plants that could be affected by the BP oil spill. That’s why we wrote our letter with the press release.

***snip***

The St. Lucie nuclear power plant and the Turkey Point nuclear power plant each has two reactors. If oil-contaminated water goes into their water intake system unmonitored, unknown, it could foul some of the safety systems that are necessary to cool the condensate that is the secondary loop in a reactor. That is water that is coming from the generators in the form of hot steam and it has to be cooled down and turned back into water. There is another third loop that goes out to the cooling towers. What we’re concerned about is that without proper monitoring of the oil plumes underwater, the nuclear plants could continue running and not be shut down as they should be. Oily water would foul up the systems and cause an emergency situation. In fact, that water if contaminated with oil is used to cool some of the emergency systems and safety

***snip***

We’ve seen time after time in the past two months since the oil rig exploded how the planning has not been coordinated or adequate. So we’re hoping the public will get some answers by our writing our letter and press release. It’s not an alarmist letter. We are not saying there is going to be a Three Mile Island event. The chances of that are pretty small, but nonetheless, it could happen if the NRC does not take the proper actions.”

From the link in Reply # 1
http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1719&category=Environment