A test of the Ground-based Interceptor (GBI) is scheduled for Thursday, January 28, sometime between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. Read more >
Latest Posts
Ground-based Midcourse Missile Defense Test Slated for Thursday
Laura Grego, senior scientist
January 27, 2016 10:18 PM EDT
Davis-Besse’s Forgotten Fix
Dave Lochbaum, director, Nuclear Safety Project
January 26, 2016 6:00 AM EDT
Disaster by Design/Safety by Intent #16
Disaster by Design
The Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Oak Harbor, Ohio is probably best known for a small leak of borated water from the reactor vessel between 1996 and 2002 that corroded six inches of the vessel’s head exposing its stainless steel liner. That quarter-inch thick liner was all that kept the plant from experiencing a very serious loss of coolant accident. Read more >
ROSS
Dave Lochbaum, director, Nuclear Safety Project
January 19, 2016 6:00 AM EDT
Disaster by Design/Safety by Intent #15
Disaster by Design
You probably have noticed by now there’s no shortage of acronyms and abbreviations in the nuclear industry. There are so many that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (sometimes called the NRC) published a report chock-a-block with many of them. Because one can never have too many acronyms, I’ll unveil another one: ROSS, for Race of Safety Snails. Read more >
Ill Prepared
Dave Lochbaum, director, Nuclear Safety Project
January 12, 2016 6:00 AM EDT
Disaster by Design/Safety by Intent #14
Disaster by Design
Disaster by Design/Safety by Intent #13 described the cost-beneficial safety upgrades identified, but not implemented, by the owner of the Indian Point nuclear plant upwind and upriver of New York City and its millions of inhabitants.
The commentary mentioned that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s regulations required the owner to perform the analysis, called the Severe Accident Mitigation Alternatives (SAMA) analysis, but not to implement cost-beneficial safety upgrades. As stupid and irresponsible as that sounds, it is the case as shown—in black & white—of the NRC’s evaluation of cost-beneficial safety upgrades for the two boiling water reactors at the Dresden nuclear plant upwind of Chicago and its millions of inhabitants (Fig. 1). Read more >
