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       One of my big concerns with nuclear power is that government regulators often fail to insure that plant operators comply with government regulations and that corporations operating nuclear power plants often ignore regulations in the name of profit. I have often blogged about this problem. Today I am going to write about a good example of what drives my concern.
       The Crystal River Nuclear Plant is located in Crystal River, Florida near Tampa Bay. Plant construction ended in 1976 and the plant operated safely for thirty-three years until it was shut down permanently in 2014. It is currently owned by Duke Power.
       Ten years ago, the power was turned off in order to carry out refueling and a complex upgrade plan. Two steam generators were to be replaced and the power output increased by 20 percent. In order to replace the steam generators, it would be necessary to cut a hole in the containment vessel for the reactor.
        There were two companies in the U.S. at that time which had the expertise and experience to carry out the replacement of the steam generators.  Between the two of these companies, they had successfully carried out similar work at thirty-four other nuclear power plants. Both of these companies bid on the Crystal River project with eighty-one million dollars being the low bid. Instead of contracting either experienced company, Progress Energy, the owners of the Crystal River plant at that time, decided to carry up the work themselves. They estimated that they would save as much as fifteen million dollars by doing it themselves. Although a standard process had been developed as the other thirty-four such upgrades proceeded, Progress Power decided that they would do it their way and ignore the earlier upgrades.
        Steel rods and four hundred and twenty-six steel bands were embedded in the walls of the containment vessel for reinforcement. Before cutting through the wall of the containment vessel, some of the steel bands needed to be loosed. This was a costly and lengthy process. The usual practice in the past had been to avoid loosening steel bands that were adjacent. In addition, in the other upgrades, the steel bands were partially loosened early in the work and then completely loosened later.
       Progress Power decided that they did not need to follow the previous process. They decided that they would not loosen as many steel bands as had been loosened during the other upgrades. They also decided to loosen adjacent bands and to relieve the tensions on the bands all at once. One of the construction foremen on the Crystal River job warned Progress Power that he had never seen such work done in this way.
        A few months into the job, workers were cutting a twenty-five by twenty-seven foot hole in the side of the containment vessel when they discovered a big crack. When they repaired the first crack, they created a second crack. Then a third crack appeared. The cost of repairing these cracks which appeared to be the fault of the Progress Power do it yourself approach was estimated to be a billion dollars.
       In 2013, the Crystal River nuclear plant was still shut down when it was purchased by Duke Energy. The next year, Duke permanently closed the Crystal River nuclear plant. The closed plant will need to be decommissioned at a cost of around a billion dollars.
       Corporate incompetence and greed resulted in the loss of an operational power plant and a great deal of money.