Kucinich asks SEC to review letter from utility--Report on damage to Davis-Besse cited

[Kolesar]

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D., Cleveland) has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether a FirstEnergy Corp. letter to shareholders last fall violated securities law by misstating the condition of the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant.

FirstEnergy has repeatedly told the public and, in an Oct. 31 letter, its stockholders that cracks in the plant reactor's shield building are not structurally significant, Mr. Kucinich said in a letter sent Wednesday to Mary L. Schapiro, the SEC's chairman. But its report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said otherwise, Mr. Kucinich said.

"I am concerned that FirstEnergy may have made material misrepresentations to its investors, in violation of the securities laws of the United States, in an effort to minimize the appearance of the problem at Davis-Besse," Mr. Kucinich wrote.

In particular, he wrote, the nuclear regulatory agency in October ordered FirstEnergy to recalculate the shield building's strength assuming that one of two layers of steel reinforcement in its concrete no longer existed.

If the building's integrity is compromised, Mr. Kucinich wrote, that could significantly reduce FirstEnergy's prospects for renewing Davis-Besse's operating license past its current expiration in 2017. The company has applied for a 20-year extension, and "if that application were denied, it could have a major effect upon the value of FirstEnergy stock," the congressman wrote....
http://www.toledoblade.com/Energy/2012/03/23/Kucinich-asks-SEC-to-review-letter-from-utility.html

There goes my hero.

[freshwest]

1. 'There goes my hero.' Meaning?

[FBaggins]

2. He lost his seat in the House.

I take it to mean that he's going out in style.

He's misguided in this case of course... but at least he's consistent.

[Kolesar]

3. No, it's a song by the Foo Fighters

The context of the congressman's complaint is that FE is defrauding investors. Are you advocating that the company should misrepresent their future prospects as a means of inflating the stock price?

[freshwest]

4. Wrong post.

[FBaggins]

5. Lol...no.

I'm advocating that the Congressman not make up his own facts to suit his press releases.

There isn't any reason to expect that the cracks will have any impact on their future prospects. The Congressman is venue hopping.

[Kolesar]

6. Uh, the plant may be closed on account of this

A multi-billion dollar asset will be lost to FE if they cannot renew the license. That will affect the FE stock price.

[FBaggins]

7. Says who?

An opponent grasping at any news to take another jab?

The NRC already alowed the plant to restart after determining that the cracks don't pose a safety problem and has recently thrown out opponent's attempts to block the extension. So many of these same groups are grasping at whatever straws they can find.

That's nothing new for a nuclear power plant and should already be reflected in the stock price.

On edit - If the plant could be closed because of the cracks... how could it get the NRC to let it restart?

[kristopher]

8. The NRC didn't determine anything

They took the company's word for it and are still reviewing the data supplied by FE.

That's the problem with regulatory capture; you can't trust the regulator to actually regulate because they are more concerned with the financial well being of those they are supposed to be holding accountable than they are interested in their role as a protector of the public good.

[FBaggins]

9. Yeah... right.

They let a nuclear reactor start up again by just "taking the companys word for it".

What they're reviewing now is the report detailing the cause of the cracks and whether they were still spreading... not whether or not the cracks pose any risk.

NRC staff performed "a rigorous, independent review" of FirstEnergy's research and analysis, Ms. Pederson said.

Kenneth O'Brien, the NRC's deputy director for its division of reactor safety, said the Dec. 2 "confirmatory action letter" that green-lighted Davis-Besse's restart was based on a conclusion not that the cracking problem had been solved, but that with continued monitoring, the shield building was capable of functioning as intended.

[kristopher]

10. You got one thing right...

"NRC staff performed "a rigorous, independent review" of FirstEnergy's research and analysis..."

"Yeah... right."

The next paragraph from the story you quoted from but neglected to provide a link to:

"But Howard Whitcomb, a Port Clinton attorney who was an NRC resident inspector at a South Carolina nuclear plant during the mid-1980s followed by four years' employment with FirstEnergy at Davis-Besse, questioned how the federal regulators, without details of how, when, and why the cracks developed, "can tell the public they have reasonable assurance that the integrity of the shield building hasn't been compromised."

Mr. Whitcomb was among numerous speakers at the meeting who said the agency should have stopped the Carroll Township nuclear plant from being restarted until more is known about the shield building's condition."
http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2012/01/06/David-Besse-s-restart-proper-company-NRC-officials-say.html

Like I said, regulatory capture.

[FBaggins]

11. And you think the SEC is better suited to make the determination?

The next paragraph

Makes clear why the speaker was unsuited to an engineering career. It's a ridiculous statement to claim that you can't know if the building can serve its function until you know the cause of the cracks.

If FE decides to paint the building pink there will be a handful of protesters who come up with some wild theory re: how that should keep the license from being extended. You see...the NRC, due no doubt to regulatory capture, refused to document where they had properly concluded that pink buildings do not attract large meteorites. In fact, all reactors should immediately be shut down until it can be proven that they are all painted a color that can be proven to repel them! If a miracle occurred and the cracks got smaller there would still be a claim that until we know why they changed size, the reactor cannot operate.

The theme is the same. The facts are irrelevant. All that matters is getting into court with a claim that a reactor should be shut down... because they think they should be shut down regardless of any problems. And a handful of shills who make a living creating such claims will show up just to earn the paycheck. Lacking shame, the irrelevance of their argument does not deter them.

[kristopher]

12. Sure, why not?

There are plenty of independent experts they can consult on the technical details if need be. Are you saying the NRC is the right agency to determine financial fraud?

[FBaggins]

13. You can't get to "financial fraud" unless you first establish that the statement was knowingly false

The SEC has no ability to make that determination... nor any authority to grant "independent" experts the power to investigate.

But it need not go even that far since the congressman's statement is objectively false. He claims that they made one statement to investors and contradicted it in their communication to the NRC. That isn't true.

The NRC reportedly asked them to run their analysis with the assumption that the outer steel reinforcing was compromised. The fact that the response does exactly that is not a claim that this has actually occured.

More on your claim that the NRC just "took their word for it"

Then, a team of four NRC inspectors went to the plant with about 80 questions associated with this initial review. They recently finished a week-long inspection verifying the initial information and questioning the company’s conclusions. While at the plant, the NRC inspectors also reexamined the condition of the shield building.

By the time the company submitted the root-cause report to the NRC on February 28, in accordance with the plant’s commitment to the agency, our inspectors had already completed observations and verification of the company’s shield building testing. Months before, NRC inspectors had traveled to laboratories in California and Colorado to directly observe tests of concrete samples removed from the Davis-Besse shield building. These tests are a key component of the cracking analysis and NRC inspectors need to have confidence in their quality.
http://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov/2012/03/27/nrc-will-make-sure-firstenergy-got-it-right-what-caused-the-cracks-in-the-davis-besse-nuclear-plants-shield-building/

[kristopher]

14. Still defending corporate fraud as long as it is a nuclear corporation?

That's the Baggins we've all come to know and appreciate.

[PamW]

16. Additionally...

You are correct that it is NOT the function of the SEC to make determinations with regard to nuclear power plant safety.

In fact, the US Supreme Court in the case of Vermont Yankee v. NRDC, 435 US 519 (1978) stated that the NRC is the agency chartered by Congress to assess nuclear safety, and that other agencies and groups are not supposed to "second guess" the determinations of the NRC when it is fulfilling its mandate.

PamW

[PamW]

15. FABRICATION; as per usual

They took the company's word for it and are still reviewing the data supplied by FE.
=================

FABRICATION ALERT - FABRICATION ALERT - FABRICATION ALERT

The Davis Besse incident was thoroughly studied by the NRC staff.
They didn't just take the operator's word for it.

Of course, you don't believe the regulators.

The NRC is chartered by Congress to regulate the nuclear industry; not promote it. In fact, that's why the NRC was split off from the AEC; so that we wouldn't have an agency that had dual purposes.

The problem is that the self-righteous anti-nukes don't believe the regulatory agency merely because it hasn't done their bidding which would be to shut down all the nuclear power plants. The self-righteous anti-nukes whine and cry like babies when they don't get their way.

The NRC staff did lots of structural analysis on the Davis Besse structures and determined via computer analysis that they were sound.

That's the way it should be - with good science providing the justification, and not someone's parochial politics.

Kris, you are entitled to your own opinion; but you are not entitled to your own facts. The facts are the facts.

PamW

[RobertEarl]

17. Right, Kristopher

TEPCO and its regulators would never allow any of the plants to cause any problems. They know exactly what they are doing. You need to learn to trust TEPCO and the regulators. Their record so far is just wonderful.

Date written: 3:10:11. That is : March 10, 2011

[PamW]

18. Doesn't follow..

There's a world of difference between the NRC and the Japanese nuclear regulators.

The Japanese nuclear regulators allowed TEPCO to do things that the NRC does NOT allow US nuclear power plants to do:

1) Japan allows the diesel fuel tanks to be above ground right at dockside as in Fukushima. NRC requires that diesel fuel tanks for the emergency diesel generators to be buried in the ground.

2) Japan allows the diesel generators to be in a non-watertight basement. NRC requires that diesel generators be in secured water-tight vaults.

3) Japan doesn't require that the utility have remotely located off site compatible diesel generators ready to fly in. The ones that TEPCO flew in didn't have the right electrical connectors to connect to the Fukushima electrical system. NRC requires that the utility have compatible generators on standby ready to fly in; and the utility has to drill - they have to pretend their is an emergency requiring the generators, fly them in and hook them up. If the Japanese had done that; they would have found that they had incompatible connectors in a drill before they really needed the generators to work...

This is just scratches the surface of the differences between Japanese regulators and the NRC.

PamW

[RobertEarl]

19. Cool

NRC has sure saved us this far.

But you bring up a good point about reactors... there are all kinds of things that can go wrong, and as we all know, eventually things do go wrong.

Now, with a conventional fuel plant, switching it OFF is the easy answer. But when it comes to reactors, any so-called "switch-off" takes 10, maybe 20 years.

And y'know what's really kinda funny-not? These gigantic power producing reactors need a serious lifeline-safety-net so that when something expected does happen, and only if the lifeline has near 100% success, the place doesn't go BOOM!!

The fragility of these massive conglomerations is what's scary.

""The bigger they are the harder they fall.""

Thank God our NRC has -so far- saved our butts from Japanese style reactor bombs from going BOOM!! We are lucky, lucky, lucky - so far.