[image-1]UPDATE 2/22: The Plain Dealer reports that FirstEnergy does indeed plan to sell or close both the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear power plants.
The Akron-based energy giant intends to offload all of its power plants by the middle of next year.
Original Story: 12/29/2016
USA Today reports that the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station might soon be shuttered or sold by FirstEnergy Corp.
FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones said in an industry conference that due to cheap energy sources like natural gas, and the state of Ohio’s unwillingness to set energy prices above market rate, operating some power plants is no longer profitable. Davis-Besse is one of several plant in Ohio and Pennsylvania potentially on the chopping block.
If Davis-Besse were to be closed, not sold, the 624 employees who work there (making an average of $86,000 per year) would be out of job. Thousands of contractors and other workers who work at the site every year would also lose a major client.
Even more “devastating,” though, would be the loss in tax revenue to Ottawa County, located in between Sandusky and Toledo. Davis-Besse generated more than $10 million in property and utility tax income in 2015, according to the report.
Davis-Besse, which was Ohio’s first nuclear power plant, and has the generating capacity to power 1 million homes, also has a frightening history of structural deficiencies. It underwent a $600 million infrastructural overhaul in 2014.
This article appears in Dec 28, 2016 – Jan 3, 2017.
Welcome to the future site of the Cleveland Browns Training Complex II!
YOUR STATEMENT ABOUT STRUCTURAL DEFICIENCIES IS EXTREMLY MISLEADING.
WHAT ARE YOU REFERRING TO ??
THE 600 MILLION DOLLARS THEY SPENT WAS TO UPGRADE 2 STEAM GENERATORS WHICH HAD NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE, SINCE THEY TYPICALLY LAST DECADES.. THE ONLY DEFICIENCY THE PLANT HAD WAS THE POTENTIAL HEAD LEAK BACK IN 2001, THAT WAS DUE TO OPERATORS NEGLIGENCE.
IF YOU ARE REFERRING TO CRACKS IN THE CONCRETE OF CONTAINMENT, THEN YOU ARE INCORRECT ONCE AGAIN, THE CRACKS ARE NOT A PROBLEM AND HAS NO AFFECT ON RADIOACTIVE LEAKAGE…. ANYMORE VIABLE THAN THE CRACK IN YOUR SIDEWALK WILL UNLEASH A VOLCANO..
PLEASE GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT AND TRY NOT TO USE IT FOR YOU OR YOUR PAPERS AGENDA
I think your caps locks is stuck dude
WHY ARE WE ALL SHOUTING?!?!!??!?!?
CLOSE THEM DOWN – seriously, i dont think theres any group of people I’d feel confident to run these things. I have a very low opinion of human intelligence anymore.
This is big money blaming the consumer/ecommerce on,the pay themselves too damn much and didn’t forcast maitnence or unwillingness to therefore pay the fixing fucking bill. Well see here the greedy american businessman such as them selfs shall not inherit the fall-out(only Ohioans wil-due to an uprise in the economy) parden the pun.
Davis Besse..1977 stuck open relief valve. 1985 main feedwater pumps shutdown. 2002 football sized reactor head hole. 2003 had 5 hr loss safety monitoring due to computer virus. 2008 tritium leak. 2010 replacement head for 2002 problem found to have 24 of 69 nozzles cracked with one leaking boric acid. 2011 shield building crack. 2012 reactor coolant pump seal leak. 2015 had 3 day shutdown for steam leak. How many times are they gonna play with nuclear catastrophe over there?
I worked at Perry for 27 years. Aside from the occasional screwballs in upper management, the general workforce are good hard working people that care about nuclear safety and their community. I feel sorry for them, because now in addition to the daily pressure of keeping the plant running in legal compliance they now have to worry about losing their jobs.
Close all the coal fired and nuclear power plants and you will finally see what a failure solar and windmill technology is. Even if you loaded up all the streets in America with solar panels they still would not produce enough to power the nation.
@ John – – yes, i feel for these workers, it sucks, we all will be displaced by some change eventually but that’s called progress. Your comment makes me even more nervous – humans are just too prone to laziness, carelessness, and inattention. Now add to it paycheck woes and who knows what kind of error can happen. Look at all the trains that crash with qualified conductors. Sorry John, I disagree, shut them down, and lets get clean burning natural gas and other renewabales that when they go boom don’t create Chernobyl. I’m happy to pay an extra $10 per mos to know I’m not living between two Kennedy era nuclear disasters waiting to happen.
Meant to respond to Dennis Damico comment above.
Davis Besse is a licensed nuclear reactor in accordance with regulations and requirements established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It is monitored very closely by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Based on that fact it is safe to operate. The basis for its possible closure is based on market competition from other forms of fuel such as natural gas. So don’t confuse safety with the energy generation competitive market.
https://www.good.is/infographics/solar-pow…
It’s not the ABILITY of solar and wind… it’s that the government is bankrolled by fossil fuels, so the stories they publish, the propaganda they spread, and the laws put into place all make it hard for solar and wind to compete.
Why would energy companies want to move towards solar/wind? They, as well as the fossil companies, make a bagillian dollars using dirty fuels, and charging customers exorbitant amounts for them.
Don’t drink the fossil Kool-Aid any longer… read for yourselves.
Agreed with Brian that the Govt is definitely on the take, BUT natural gas fired plants are cleaner then coal, can be up and running reasonably quickly, and don’t require huge subsidies like solar or wind.
Re Just The Facts above – – I would be very careful in expecting your response to elicit comfort. Invoking a government agency just doesnt’ have the ring that it used to. If what you say is true on market competition then I say – God bless the free market – because my hope in having them close is avoiding a massive disaster.
These plants are horribly out of date. That being said, there is no such thing as clean burning fossil fuels and there is no way that solar and wind can cover all of the power requirements. The bast thing that they could do is replace and upgrade the reactors. There has been quantum leaps in nuclear technology over the past 30-40 years since they were brought online. Both in terms of safety and efficacy. Currently nuclear power plants are the best way to meet the power requirements of the country. But they do need to be upgraded now and probably will again in 30-40 more years.
Ontario Canada significantly reduced fossil fuel use for electrical production over several decades. They are the clean electricity champions of North America. How do they do it? Check out this free app. It updates the provinces electrical generation mic every hour.
http://www.GridWatch.ca
Get it, review the data, I promise, you’ll learn something. Tons of good information here. Cheers!
If Davis Bessie were to close it would be a huge loss for the Lake Erie fisherman in Ottawa county. The vapor from the cooling tower provides them with a great wind direction and wind speed indicator.
This is a follow up to Fisher Man’s post. Also the fish around the Davis Bessie plant would be smaller.
Regulation and ignorance has driven the cost of maintaining these “state of the ark” plants sky high. The plants were designed and licensed to handle “design basis accidents”, which were clearly spelled out and given the nod by the NRC. Then came Three Mile Island, and more recently, Fukushima in Japan. The regulations changed. The FLEX strategy developed as a knee jerk reaction to Fukushima drove plant owners to implement design changes and purchase equipment for postulated scenarios BEYOND what the design basis required. Digital technology used in other industries is seriously lagging behind due to cyber security requirements, thus we’re stuck with analog technology from the 1970s and 1980s. Vendors are getting sick and tired of trying to meet qualification requirements for safety related equipment for a very narrow customer base, so we’re running out of qualified parts.
I worked at Davis Bessie for four years during the hole in the head fiasco, so the management decisions made are also coming back to haunt these plants even now. Save a nickel now, spend $$$ later. The managers at that time got their bonuses and moved on, leaving a mess for the next poor sucker.
Sorry to hear Perry might be closed as well. Worked there, too, and at the time the workers really cared about doing their job well. Agree there were some managers there that shouldn’t have been, but overall, a good plant.