May 21st, 2013
The Seabrook nuclear plant in New Hampshire is located near the Atlantic Ocean. Large pipes extend offshore to draw in seawater to cool plant equipment. Because an earthquake might damage this piping, the plant has a cooling tower onsite near the Unit 1 containment building. Read More
May 14th, 2013
When something happens at a U.S. nuclear power reactor like an unplanned shut down or problem that prevents operation at full power, it can be helpful to place that incident in context. One means of providing that context is to examine that reactors’ operating performance. Read More
May 7th, 2013
For the first time in a long while, nuclear power plants are being built in the United States (Watts Bar Unit 2 really doesn’t count because it was “under construction” when I was in college back in the disco daze of the late 1970s). Read More
April 30th, 2013
When the NRC originally licenses and subsequently relicenses a nuclear power reactor, Appendix A to the operating license contains what are called the Technical Specifications, or tech specs for short. The tech specs are required by federal regulation. Read More
April 23rd, 2013
It’s an innocent man about to be arrested and detained overnight for a crime he did not commit. Read More
April 16th, 2013
It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. If so, the NRC provides over one million words via its online photos on flickr. The NRC has organized its photos into nearly four dozens sets. While some images are duplicated in more than one set, there are sit lots of photographs in the collection. Read More
April 9th, 2013
On November 22, 2012, workers at the Browns Ferry nuclear plant in Alabama were testing excess flow check valves on the Unit 1 reactor. Excess flow check valves are used in piping and tubing less than an inch in diameter to protect against ruptures. Read More
April 2nd, 2013
NEAT #2 covered event notifications received by the NRC from plant owners per the reporting requirements in 10 CFR 50.72. The notifications are commonly followed up by written reports from the owners called licensee event reports (LERs). Read More
March 26th, 2013
Fukushima Daiichi recently received worldwide media attention when another power outage once again interrupted cooling of the water in the Unit4 spent fuel pool for several hours. The culprits in 2011 were an earthquake that knocked out the normal supply of electricity to the cooling system and a tsunami that disabled the backup power source. Read More
March 19th, 2013
Federal regulations, specifically 10 CFR 50.72 require that plant owners promptly notify the NRC about emergencies or safety problems. Depending on the nature and severity, these conditions must be reported to the NRC within one, four, or eight hours. The NRC staffs its Incident Response Center 24 hours a day, 365 days a year so as to receive these reports and initiate response by the federal government when appropriate. Read More
© 2013
