Davis–Besse Nuclear Power Station
Davis–Besse Nuclear Power Station is an 894 megawatt nuclear power plant, located northeast of Oak Harbor, Ohio, United States. It has a single pressurized water reactor. Davis–Besse is operated by Vistra Corp.
Throughout its operation, Davis–Besse has been the site of several safety incidents that affected the plant's operation. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Davis–Besse has been the source of two of the top five most dangerous nuclear incidents in the United States since 1979. The most severe occurring in March 2002, when maintenance workers discovered corrosion had eaten a football-sized hole into the reactor vessel head. The NRC kept Davis–Besse shut down until March 2004, so that FirstEnergy was able to perform all the necessary maintenance for safe operations. The NRC imposed an over $5 million fine, its largest fine ever to a nuclear power plant, against FirstEnergy for the actions that led to the corrosion. The company paid an additional $28 million in fines under a settlement with the United States Department of Justice.
Davis–Besse was expected to close in 2020 as it is no longer profitable to run when competing against natural gas plants. Plans were updated indicating possible shut down by May 31, 2020. However, Ohio House Bill 6 was signed into law in July 2019 which added a fee to residents' utility bills that funded subsidies of $150 million per year to Davis–Besse and the Perry Nuclear Generating Station to keep both plants operational. The bill was alleged to be part of the Ohio nuclear bribery scandal revealed by the United States Department of Justice in July 2020.
Location and history
The power station is located on the southwest shore of Lake Erie about north of Oak Harbor, Ohio and is on the north side of Highway 2 just east of Highway 19 on a site in the Carroll Township. The plant only utilizes, with devoted to the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. The entrance to the Magee Marsh Wildlife Area is approximately 5 miles east of the power station. The official name according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration is the Davis–Besse Nuclear Generating Station. It is the 57th commercial power reactor to commence building in the United States of America and the 50th to come on-line July 31, 1978. The plant was originally jointly owned by Cleveland Electric Illuminating and Toledo Edison and was named for former TE Chairman John K. Davis and former CEI Chairman Ralph M. Besse.Unit One is an 879 MWe pressurized water reactor supplied by Babcock & Wilcox. The reactor was shut down from 2002 until early 2004 for safety repairs and upgrades. In 2012 the reactor supplied 7101.700 GWh of electricity.
In 1973, two more reactors were also ordered from Babcock & Wilcox. However, construction on Units Two and Three never commenced, and these two units were officially canceled in 1981.
Electricity production
Incident history
1977 first stuck-open pilot-operated relief valve
On September 24, 1977, the relief valve for the reactor pressurizer failed to close when the reactor, running at only 9% power, shut down because of a disruption in the feedwater system.This incident later became a precursor to the Three Mile Island accident, in which a pilot-operated relief valve also became stuck open, leaking thousands of gallons of coolant water into the basement of the reactor building.
1985 loss of feedwater event
On June 9, 1985, the main feedwater pumps, used to supply water to the reactor steam generators, shut down. A control room operator then attempted to start the auxiliary feedwater pumps. These pumps both tripped on overspeed conditions because of operator error. This incident was originally classified an "" but it was later determined that it should have been classified a "site area emergency".1998 tornado
On June 24, 1998, the station was struck by an F2 tornado. The plant's switchyard was damaged and access to external power was disabled. The plant's reactor automatically shut down at 8:42 pm and an alert was declared at 9:18 pm. The plant's emergency diesel generators powered critical facility safety systems until external power could be restored.2002 reactor head hole
In March 2002, plant staff discovered that the borated water that serves as the reactor coolant had leaked from cracked control rod drive mechanisms directly above the reactor and eaten through more than six inches of the carbon steel reactor pressure vessel head over an area roughly the size of a football. This significant reactor head wastage on the exterior of the reactor vessel head left only of stainless steel cladding holding back the high-pressure reactor coolant. A breach most likely would have resulted in a massive loss-of-coolant accident, in which reactor coolant would have jetted into the reactor's containment building and resulted in emergency safety procedures to protect from core damage or meltdown. Because of the location of the reactor head damage, such a jet of reactor coolant might have damaged adjacent control rod drive mechanisms, hampering or preventing reactor shut-down. As part of the system reviews following the accident, significant safety issues were identified with other critical plant components, including the following:- the containment sump that allows the reactor coolant to be reclaimed and reinjected into the reactor;
- the high pressure injection pumps that would reinject such reclaimed reactor coolant;
- the emergency diesel generator system;
- the containment air coolers that would remove heat from the containment building;
- reactor coolant isolation valves; and
- the plant's electrical distribution system.
The NRC determined that this incident was the fifth-most dangerous nuclear incident in the United States since 1979, and imposed its largest fine ever—more than $5 million—against FirstEnergy for the actions that led to the corrosion.
Criminal prosecutions
In January 2006, First Energy, the owner of Davis–Besse, acknowledged a series of safety violations by former workers, and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the United States Department of Justice. The deferred prosecution agreement related to the March 2002 incident. The deferment granted by the NRC were based on letters from Davis–Besse engineers stating that previous inspections were adequate. However, those inspections were not as thorough as the company suggested, as proved by the material deficiency discovered later. In any case, because FirstEnergy cooperated with investigators on the matter, they were able to avoid more serious penalties. The company paid $28 million under a settlement with the Justice Department. $23.7 million of that were fines, with an additional $4.3 million to be contributed to various groups, including the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Habitat for Humanity, and the University of Toledo as well as to pay some costs related to the federal investigation.Two former employees and one former contractor were indicted for statements made in multiple documents and one videotape, over several years, for hiding evidence that the reactor pressure vessel was being corroded by boric acid. The maximum penalty for the three was 25 years in prison. The indictment mentions that other employees also provided false information to inspectors, but does not name them. In 2007, one of these men was convicted and another acquitted of hiding information from and lying to the NRC. Another jury trial in 2008 convicted the remaining engineer of similar crimes.