ＥＥＥ会議（Ｒｅ：北米大停電事件の元凶、ＦＥ社の実態）...........................................2003.8.23

　
今回の北米大停電の原因は目下連邦政府のエネルギー省が調査中ですが、元凶は、
どうやらオハイオ州の電力会社ファーストエナジー社(FirstEnergy Corporation)で
あったようです。同社は、New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio州などの４３０万人を顧
客に持つ有力電力会社ですが、一昨年カリフォルニア州で問題を起こしたエンロン社
に似て、以前からかなり問題のある電力会社として悪名が高く、昨年春は同社所有の
Davis-Besse原発（五大湖の1つ、エリー湖畔にある）で、原子炉圧力容器の上蓋にホ
ウ酸による腐食で大きな亀裂が出来ているのが見つかり、運転停止に追い込まれると
いう事件を引き起こしました。この事件については、当時ＥＥＥ会議でも何度も詳し
くお伝えしたので、記憶しておられる方も多いと思いますが、もしあのまま放置して
運転を続けていたならば、ＴＭＩ原発事故（1979年）に次ぐ大惨事を起こしていただ
ろうと言われます。このDavis-Besse原発の場合も、原因は、経営陣が安全性より収
益
性を重視し、危険を訴える従業員を解雇するなどして強引に運転を続けたからだとさ
れております。

今回も、オハイオ州など中部諸州の電力市場自由化の中で生き残りを図るために、
会社の収益の大半を、政治目的（電気料金や排気ガス規制での優遇措置を獲得するた
めの議会ロビー活動）に使い、肝心の送電網などの整備改善を疎かにしていたこと
が厳しく指摘されております。　本日(8/22)のNew York Timesの報道によれば、ブッ
シュ氏の大統領当選に功績のあった前共和党全国大会委員長を会社顧問に迎え、チェ
ニー副大統領を通じて強力なロビー活動を行っており、その結果いろいろな優遇措置
の獲得に成功していたということで、こうした経営態度が今回の大停電事件の最大の
原因であると断じています。もっと詳しいことを知りたい方は、以下の記事をどうぞ
（長文なので、1/3程度に短縮してあります）。
--KK

****************************************************

Blackout Is Just Latest Woe for a Troubled Ohio Utility
By JAMES DAO with ERIC LIPTON


LEVELAND, Aug. 21 ・The huge gray cooling tower of the Davis-Besse power
plant stands along Lake Erie like a monument to nuclear energy and
industrial might. That it has been idle for more than a year, though, makes
it a testament to something else, according to former employees and the
federal regulators who ordered it shut down.

The dormant plant, for them, is an example of neglect and poor management by
its owner, the FirstEnergy Corporation, which allowed hazardous conditions
to fester so badly that a catastrophic accident may have been only months
away.

The shutdown of Davis-Besse ・the plant, outside Toledo, was taken off-line
after acid nearly ate through the reactor lid ・is the most extreme example
of shortcomings in how FirstEnergy runs an empire with 4.3 million customers
across New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

But it is not the only one.

Its New Jersey subsidiary has come under fire for frequent blackouts, for
inadequate maintenance and for allowing stray electricity to run through the
ground, leaving residents of Brick, N.J., tingling when they step into pools
and Jacuzzis.

And in northern Ohio, mayors have complained to state regulators that power
failures by FirstEnergy have become more frequent and longer, forcing some
to buy diesel-powered generators for municipal buildings. The company has
been responsible for more blackouts in Ohio already this year than all of
last year.

When FirstEnergy's network of transmission lines and power plants in
northern Ohio failed last Thursday ・one of the first problems in the
cascade of events that resulted in the nation's largest blackout ・
misgivings among elected officials and others about the company's
performance turned into wider and more fundamental questioning of its
conduct as one of the major players in the nation's deregulated, physically
vulnerable energy market.

FirstEnergy contends that its run of recent problems is not the result of a
systemic management failure or inadequate investment in its power system,
and some industry monitors assert that the company's performance is by and
large no better or worse than other giant utilities.

FirstEnergy has failed, it said, to meet national standards for safe
operations in very few categories.

And the federal officials investigating the blackout have been explicit in
cautioning against assuming who, if anyone, was to blame, and emphasizing
that it will be weeks before they sort out what exactly accounted for the
failure of any part of the system.

FirstEnergy, based in Akron, is no Enron, the once high-flying Texas energy
merchant that sold its power plants at the dawn of energy deregulation to
focus on buying and selling power. Formed in 1997 by the merger of two Ohio
utilities, FirstEnergy kept its smokestacks and power lines. But the company
is in many ways emblematic of how traditional utilities have tried to adapt
to the freewheeling ways of deregulation.

It has become aggressive about expansion, but a number of its senior
managers stepped down or were reassigned while the company was under fire.
It, like similar energy companies, has invested ever larger amounts on
lobbying and political campaigns, pouring money into local and national
politics and earning victories on rates and energy policy.

And, documents indicate, FirstEnergy has made what many experts and elected
officials regard as less than impressive efforts at spending on the things
that they say the nation's electricity grid needs most: upgrading its
transmission system. In the three years since deregulation legislation
passed in Ohio, its spending on maintaining its high-voltage transmission
lines in Ohio has remained all but flat.

The decision not to increase such spending came as industry groups and
government regulators were warning that the grid system in the Midwest,
including FirstEnergy's territory, could become a choke point in a summer
power surge.

FirstEnergy has insisted it was an accidental player in the blackout, that
the problem began elsewhere. But many experts say the problems at
FirstEnergy are indicative of broader issues affecting many power companies
as competitive pressures have increased the drive for profits, and the role
of government to police the operation of the nation's power grid is
extremely limited.

(中略）

In the months after the Davis-Besse plant was shut, federal investigators
and even FirstEnergy officials agreed what was at the root of the problem:
employees felt intimidated about raising safety problems.

"They had a lot of warning signs that they either overlooked or downplayed,"
said David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned
Scientists, who interviewed staff at the plant.

What had been overlooked or ignored at Davis-Besse was remarkable.

Boric acid had seeped through cracks in plant control rods that pass through
to the highly radioactive zone, where superpressurized water is used to cool
the plant while it is creating energy. In fact, investigators found that the
acid had eaten through the carbon steel part of the reactor vessel head,
leaving only a thin stainless steel lining intact. Yet a backup system
intended to cool the nuclear fuel in the event of a breach in the reactor
vessel was handicapped because an undersize drainage screen could easily
become blocked.

Taken together, what had been created is now widely considered the most
serious nuclear plant incident in the nation since the Three Mile Island
accident in 1979.

（後略）