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As the anniversary approaches of Winter Storm Elliott, a pair of reports released this month reveal how much worse the situation almost became and the continued vulnerability of the U.S. energy grid to frigid weather.
Energy Central…
The post Frost-Heaving Problems and Solutions for Power Engineers appeared first on POWER Magazine.
For the progressive development of modern civilization, access to minerals is critical. The main recoverable reserves of such minerals are often located at high latitudes. For example, a significant number of the world’s hydrocarbon deposits are located above 60 degrees North latitude.
Our company, Noyabrskie Power Grids, is also located in this area, and its core business is the high-quality and uninterrupted power supply to oil and natural gas industry facilities. The company operates in a hard-to-reach area with numerous swamps and lakes, in an area with complex geotechnical and geocryological conditions. Soils located in the zone of seasonal freezing are widespread here, and there are areas of permafrost soils.
The permafrost is formed in the areas of peat, loamy, and sandy sediments with considerable moisture. Soils located in the seasonal freezing zone have frost heave properties, which are shown in the irregularity of surface elevation of the freezing soil layer, replaced with the subsidence of the latter when thawing.…
The post NRC Cites Problems at Vogtle, May Increase Project Oversight appeared first on POWER Magazine.
Continuing issues with the two-unit expansion of the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia have led federal regulators to say they are considering increasing oversight of the project. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Aug. 26, in a letter to Southern Nuclear, which is leading the project along with its sister company Georgia Power, released its findings from an inspection conducted earlier this summer, with the agency reporting problems that could threaten the plant’s operation.
The Plant Vogtle project has been beset by numerous delays over the past several years, and is billions of dollars over budget. The NRC said its inspection came after Georgia Power earlier this year disclosed quality control issues with the expansion.
The NRC said it uncovered problems with electrical cables and systems that it said were apparently not installed correctly, including in some cases installed too close together.…
The post Testing Problems Push Vogtle Start to 2022 appeared first on POWER Magazine.
Southern Co. has moved the startup date for the first unit of its two-reactor expansion at the Vogtle nuclear power plant to the first quarter of 2022, citing problems found during testing. The company on May 18 notified Georgia state regulators of the delay. Analysts with Mizuho Group, an investment banking company, on May 21 said Southern interrupted “hot functional testing” of Unit 3 at Vogtle due to vibration of the plant’s pressurizer.
Executives with Southern Nuclear, the nuclear arm of Southern Co., and local utility and Southern subsidiary Georgia Power told the Georgia Public Service Commission they now are planning for the first of the two new 1,100-MW AP1000 reactors to enter operation at some point in the first three months of 2022.
Southern just two months ago announced a delay in testing of Unit 3, but at that time said the project remained on track for a November 2021 startup.…
The post Understanding Energy Crises of the 1970s and Avoiding Problems Today appeared first on POWER Magazine.
If you were alive and living in the U.S. during the 1970s, you probably remember waiting in long lines to fill your car with fuel. Yet, gasoline wasn’t the only item in short supply during the “Me Decade”—natural gas was seemingly running out and electricity demand was growing so much that new power plants were going up all over the country.
“I would argue, and I think a lot of historians would agree with me, that the 1970s was the most important decade in U.S. energy history, and I say that because of the gasoline interruptions. We had three big crises in the Middle East that reduced our supplies of oil, and that got so bad that at one point, in some states, less than 50% of the stations had any gasoline to sell at all,” Jay Hakes, author of the forthcoming book Energy Crises: Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Hard Choices in the 1970s, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast.…