Loud Bang and Cloud of "Steam" Over Heysham 2 Near Morecambe Last Night is "No Cause for Concern"

This follows on from the plant "tripping out" over Christmas

Last night as reported on BBC local news: “People in Heysham, near Morecambe, were alarmed and called Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service to report the sudden noise at the EDF operated power plant at about 17:00 GMT. Pictures shared with the BBC showed a white cloud in a mushroom shape hanging above the second of two plants in the area, known as Heysham 2. EDF said the cloud was comprised of "clean steam" and was caused by a reactor unit "coming offline" unexpectedly.”

This follows on from the same EDF Nuclear Plant “tripping out” over Christmas.

“EDF Energy said the outage at Heysham 2 power station, near Morecambe, on Monday (23rd Dec 2024) was caused by an issue with the high voltage transmission system run by National Grid.

National Grid confirmed there was a fault at one of its remote substations that was at about the time Heysham 2 tripped.”

This nuclear plant is running way past its originally planned shut down date with EDF fizzingly telling us that “Heysham 2 (Lancashire) and Torness (East Lothian) will keep producing zero-carbon electricity for an additional two years to March 2030 while Heysham 1 (Lancashire) and Hartlepool (Teesside) will produce power until March 2027, an extension of one year.” This of course follows on from previous extensions to keep these dodgy old and embrittled reactors going.

This is a Freedom of Information answer from the Office for Nuclear Regulation to questions Radiation Free Lakeland asked about the unplanned outage and subsequent NOISY restart of Heysham 2 which has the same problem of brittle graphite as Hunterston B in Scotland (now shutdown).

Please find our response to the points you raise below:

On the evening of Monday 12th August 2019, a reactor at Heysham 2 was manually tripped and safely shutdown. The operators took this positive action due to a loss of electrical supplies to a control circuit. Although this event did not affect any safety circuits, ONR consider that the tripping of the reactor was the proper response to such an event rather than “a dangerous indicator that things are not under control”. As such we can confirm that ONR has no nuclear safety concerns as a result of these events and there was no risk to the public.

The event was reported to ONR and investigated by EDF to identify the root cause of this event and actions required to prevent recurrence. The ONR site Inspector subsequently discussed this event with the EDF site team and is satisfied that the loss of supplies was not related to design lifetime; did not affect any safety circuit; and that appropriate actions to prevent reoccurrence have been identified. The site inspector has confirmed these actions were implemented.

The reactor was started three days later following the investigation mentioned above and the necessary action to restore electrical supplies to the control circuit. That evening loud bangs were heard. These were caused by the opening and closing (cycling) of pressure relief valves during the reactor start-up activities. This occurred in response to changes in steam pressure. Quick opening and closing of these heavy valves can often make a loud banging noise. On this occasion, these noises continued for a period of about twelve minutes. This combined with the timing (on a relatively silent night) of the activity resulted in the sound being heard in the vicinity of the power station.

We hope that you find this information helpful in addressing your concerns.

Finally, I can also confirm receipt of your email dated 8 October 2019 concerning Hartlepool 2. We are processing this as a separate query (with reference HPGE201910056), and aim to provide a response as soon as possible, certainly by 7 November 2019.

Kind regards

Emma Lui

Policy & Communications Directorate

ONR
Redgrave Court, Merton Road, Bootle, L20 7HS

Radiation Free Lakeland reported back in 2020: “The Office for Nuclear Regulation have bowed to EDF’s ask that they are granted a runtime extension to the start of the “Statutory” Outage Period. This is so EDF can get their logistics together on the other Reactors maintenance on site (There are 4 cores at Heysham). So the dodgy broken boiler of Heysham 1 Reactor 1 will be running for longer than the planned period – does that sound like something the regulators should wave through?

There has been no public participation on this – the ONR simply gave EDF the thumbs up. Meanwhile dodgy old nuclear reactors are kept running while renewables are dumped. Much has been made of the fact that wind farms are being turned off because there is currently too much electricity going into the grid !! But the dodgy old nuclear reactors keep on keeping on. As well as the dodgy boiler described below these EDF reactors have embrittled graphite cores

The ONR’s full document can be seen here

Some Extracts below:

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Heysham 1 Reactor 1 Periodic Shutdown 2020 ONR Agreement for Extension of Operating Period for Heysham 1 Reactor 1

Project Assessment Report ONR-OFD-PAR-19-016 Revision 0 01 April 2020

Permission Requested

EDF Energy Nuclear Generation Limited (NGL) has requested Agreement from the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) to extend the operating period of Heysham 1 Power Station Reactor 1 (R1) by a period of 71 days to no later than16th June 2020. This request is made in accordance with Licence Condition (LC) 30 (Periodic Shutdown) of the station’s nuclear site licence.

The current operating period for R1 will expire on the 06 April 2020. NGL wish to extend this operating period until the 16 June 2020. The reason for this extension request is due to the delays with completing post R2 defueling outage activities as a result of the necessity to exchange the west side fuelling machine long travel wheels. The subsequent pre-outage fuelling process activities are now not expected to be completed until mid to late May 2020.

Additionally, following the successful injection of oxygen into Reactor 2 (R2) in October 2019 and as part of the failed fuel mitigation activities, Heysham 1 intend to carry out modifications to the gas circulator IGV differential pressure impulse lines during the statutory outage. This is an enabling activity for a potential future R1 oxygen injection campaign. An outage start date in April 2020 could result in the preparatory activities for the impulse line modifications not being completed on time.

Finally, an outage start date in April 2020 overlaps with the current statutory outage at Heysham 2. While the pressure on resources is being managed, delaying the Heysham 1 outage would assist in reducing pressure on those staff supporting both outages.

NGL claim this extension will have no impact on the safe operation of R1.

Matters arising from ONR’s work

During the assessment, ONR was informed by NGL that a number of control rod standpipes and gas circulator penetration liner welds are overdue examination in accordance to the current written scheme of examination (WSE) necessary to comply with the Pressure System Safety Regulations 2000 (PSSR) 9(1) obligations. Enforcement associated with this breach of conventional legislation will be considered separately by ONR through the application of ONR’s enforcement management model.

•  The potential impact of the deferral on degradation mechanisms related to physical parameters such as temperature, irradiation, pressure etc. is negligible.

•  The potential impact of the deferral on other known time-related degradation mechanisms is very small, and any increase in risk would be negligible.

•  Safety case commitments and caveats made to support safety case claims, including JCOs, IJCOs and Availability Assessments, will not be affected by the proposal.

•  There are no commitments from the previous return to service EC that will be affected by the deferral.

The risk of continued operation of R1 for up to 71 days beyond 6th April 2020 is ALARP. This view is based on:

•  A negligible increase in risk due to a 71 day deferral to the outage start date.

•  Significant safety benefits in delaying the R1 statutory outage including the opportunity to include oxygen injection modifications in the scope of the 2020 outage and enable the repair of the fuelling machine defects prior to the outage commencement.

•  Reasonably practicable risk reduction measures have been considered.ONR review of outage deferral requestDuring the assessment, ONR was informed by NGL that a number of control rod standpipes and gas circulator penetration liner welds 1B1 and 1B2 are overdue examination in accordance to the current written scheme of examination (WSE) necessary to comply with the Pressure System Safety Regulations 2000 (PSSR) 9(1) obligations. Enforcement associated with this breach of conventional legislation will be considered separately by ONR through the application of ONR’s enforcement management model.Each of the ONR specialist inspectors; civil engineering, structural integrity, graphite, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and control and instrumentation, examined the NGL safety justification for the outage deferral. Overall the specialist inspectors considered that the deferral would have no, or negligible, impact on nuclear safety and they all supported, or had no objections to Agreeing to the extension to the operating period for R1.Their judgements were supported by the evidence that:

6 RECOMMENDATIONS

26. I recommend ONR issues Licence Instrument 627 under LC30(2) for Nuclear Site Licence 60, giving ONR’s Agreement to extend the operating period of Heysham 1 Reactor 1, so that the periodic shutdown commences no later than 16 June 2020.

Office for Nuclear Regulation Page 10 of 11

Report ONR-OFD-PAR-19-016 CM9 Ref: 2020/78918”