Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant leak-complete shutdown averted
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June 16, 2010- The Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power plant, operated by Entergy, reportedly had a near emergency shutdown recently when a cooling water valve started leaking heavily. The leak was of the order of 1.6 gallons of radioactive water per minute (far above the “legally allowable” limit of 1 gallon per minute). However regulatory officials and the plant management claimed that there was no immediate danger.
The maintenance team replaced the faulty valve within about five hours after the incident. If they had been unsuccessful, probably the plant would have had to do an emergency shutdown as per the rules. Local sources said that the 38 year old plant was prone to “many leaks” in the recent past, but these reports could not be independently verified. The latest incident underscores however that the public belief that nuclear energy is “far better” than fossil fuel based energy (after the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill) is not correct. Nuclear power plants also have their risks, although the proper engineering and management of the safety systems can mitigate these risks to a large extent. This was also thought before the BP Oil Spill about offshore drilling….now of course we know how that went awry.
OSHA fines BP- Husky refinery more than $ 3 million
OREGON, Ohio — The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited BP North American Inc. and BP-Husky Refining LLC’s refinery in Oregon, Ohio, with 42 alleged willful violations, including 39 on a per-instance basis, and 20 alleged serious violations for exposing workers to a variety of hazards including failure to provide adequate pressure relief for process units. Proposed penalties total $3,042,000.
“OSHA has found that BP often ignored or severely delayed fixing known hazards in its refineries,” said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. “There is no excuse for taking chances with people’s lives. BP must fix the hazards now.”
OSHA began its inspection at the refinery located near Toledo, Ohio, in September 2009 as part of the agency’s Refinery National Emphasis Program and as a follow-up to a 2006 inspection and a 2007 settlement agreement between OSHA and BP at this location. Although the 2009 inspection found that BP had complied with the settlement agreement, OSHA found numerous violations at the plant not previously covered by the agreement.
The inspection revealed that workers were exposed to serious injury and death in the event of a release of flammable and explosive materials in the refinery because of numerous conditions constituting violations of OSHA’s process safety management standard. OSHA has issued willful citations for numerous failures to provide adequate pressure relief for process units, failures to provide safeguards to prevent the hazardous accumulation of fuel in process heaters, and exposing workers to injury and death from collapse of or damage, in the event of a fire, to nine buildings in the refinery. Additional willful citations allege various other violations of OSHA’s standard addressing process safety management. These citations carry proposed penalties totaling $2,940,000.
The serious citations address a variety of other hazards, including violations of other requirements of the process safety management standard. These carry proposed penalties totaling $102,000.
Since 1991, this refinery has been inspected 12 times. Nationally, BP Products North American has been inspected by OSHA 44 times at various sites and is facing pending cases in which 439 willful citations and failure-to-abate notices were issued to its Texas City Refinery as a result of a 2009 inspection. Proposed penalties in those pending cases total $87 million, the largest penalties by far ever proposed by OSHA. BP’s Texas City Refinery experienced a devastating explosion and fire in 2005 that killed 15 workers and injured 170. A large portion of the penalties proposed for the Texas City Refinery results from OSHA’s allegations that BP failed to fully live up to a settlement agreement entered into after the explosion. BP has contested the citations, notifications of failure-to-abate and the proposed penalties in those cases.
BP North American Inc. operates and jointly owns the refinery with Canadian-based Husky Energy Inc. The company has 15 business days from receipt of the citations to comply, request an information conference with the OSHA area director or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA’s role is to assure these conditions for America’s working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance.
For more information, visit http://www.osha.gov.
Kleen Energy Explosion-CSB issues report
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Feb 25, 2010- The CSB has released a preliminary report about their findings in the Kleen energy power plant explosion that caused fatalities and injuries. Here is the text of the news conference.
The gist of the findings are that companies must take sufficient care to ensure that gas or explosive/inflammable vapors do not happen at all and if they do, they should not meet an ignition source. This is well known to engineers and technicians in the process industries, but apparently it took actual explosions to bring home the truth.

KleenEnergyLeakPhoto
CSB Statement
Safety Guidelines-which ones do you follow?
We all have several safety guidelines in our plants. Some are given as top management directives, some are given out by the local authorities, some by the federal/higher government authorities like OSHA/ other independent bodies like the US Chemical Safety Board and some others are plant and process specific only. Some of these are introduced, only after something goes awry in the process and results in near misses or accidents. Plus, there are several international standards that many companies follow, in addition to their own plant specific safety guidelines.
So my question to you all is this- Which ones of these do you actually follow? All of them, or only those that you deem necessary? If you do follow all of them, how do you prioritize them? Does anybody audit your plant to check if all these various guidelines are adhered to? Or does nobody bother at all until the point at which an accident or disaster happens and all hell breaks loose? Do you have all of these in a single location where any employee or workman/contractor can access it easily? Is it important to you and your company that these guidelines be stored at a location that is easily accessible to all stakeholders?
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Hot work without a gas test-when will people ever learn?
Another accident has been reported due to negligence and lack of an understanding of hazardous materials and their properties. Fortunately there have been no fatalities, only two injuries, but they are severe and the victims have been hospitalized, reports the Merced Sun Star, in a news item dated April, 02, 2009.
The two injured men were workers in a produce plant (A.V.Thomas Produce, 3900 Sultana Drive, Atwater, Merced County, CA ), who were using an Acetylene blowtorch on a fuel tank. They were trying to loosen a compression bolt on the fuel tank, when it exploded. Common safety procedures apparently were not followed. The tank exploded, causing second- and third-degree burns to 30 and 50 percent of the men’s bodies, according to Cal Fire Battalion Chief Kevin Lawson. Read the full story here.
It is very clear what caused the explosion. It is not the usage of an acetylene torch or the presence of volatile flammable materials near a naked flame, it was IGNORANCE that caused the explosion. A basic safety training in the hazards of volatile organic compounds like gasoline or diesel would have helped. There was no gas test to detect %LEL near the fuel tank, nor any “hot work” permit system.
When will we ever learn?




















