In the late 1960s, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the forerunner of the NRC, paid the very companies that designed nuclear reactors—Westinghouse and General Electric (GE)—to test the efficacy of their own emergency cooling systems. Read More
Latest Posts
NRC Cherry-Picking in the Post-Fukushima Era: A Case Study
Mark Leyse Guest Commentary, UCS
May 7, 2018 9:31 AM EDT
What Does North Korea Want—and What is the US Prepared to Give?
David Wright, co-director and senior scientist
April 26, 2018 12:46 PM EDT
North Korea is not likely to negotiate in earnest unless it is convinced the United States is committed to the process. It is important that the administration put together a package of what it is willing to put on the table in response to Pyongyang’s steps. Read more >
What Does the US Want from North Korea?
David Wright, co-director and senior scientist
April 26, 2018 12:45 PM EDT
President Trump is planning to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un in May or June. In preparing for the summit, the administration must be clear about what it wants from the process—both near-term and long-term. And it needs to figure out what it is willing to put on the table to get those things. Read more >
The “Race” to Resolve the Boiling Water Reactor Safety Limit Problem
Dave Lochbaum, director, Nuclear Safety Project
April 24, 2018 6:00 AM EDT
General Electric (GE) informed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in March 2005 that its computer analyses of a depressurization event for boiling water reactors (BWRs) non-conservatively assumed the transient would be terminated by the automatic trips of the main turbine and reactor on high water level in the reactor vessel. GE’s updated computer studies revealed that one of four BWR safety limits could be violated before another automatic response terminated the event.
Over the ensuring decade-plus, owners of 28 of the 34 BWRs operating in the US applied for and received the NRC’s permission to fix the problem. But it’s not clear why the NRC allowed this known safety problem, which could allow nuclear fuel to become damaged, to linger for so long or why the other six BWRs have yet to resolve the problem. UCS has asked the NRC’s Inspector General to look into why and how the NRC tolerated this safety problem affecting so many reactors for so long. Read more >
Japan’s Nuclear Hawks Could Block US-North Korean Agreement on Denuclearization
Gregory Kulacki, China project manager and senior analyst
April 22, 2018 8:46 AM EDT
Momentum has been building for a productive meeting between President Trump and Kim Jung-un that could lead to an agreement on North Korean denuclearization. But after speaking with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump warned the world that he might cancel or walk out of the meeting if “it is not going to be fruitful.” Read more >
