indianpoint


Why NRC Nuclear Safety Inspections are Necessary: Indian Point

, director, Nuclear Safety Project

October 23, 2017 6:00 AM EDT

This is the second in a series of commentaries about the vital role nuclear safety inspections conducted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) play in protecting the public. The initial commentary described how NRC inspectors discovered that limits on the maximum allowable control room air temperature at the Columbia Generating Station in Washington had been improperly relaxed by the plant’s owner. This commentary describes a more recent finding by NRC inspectors about an improper safety assessment of a leaking cooling water system pipe on Entergy’s Unit 3 reactor at Indian Point outside New York City. Read more >

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Spent Fuel Damage: Pool Criticality Accident

, director, Nuclear Safety Project

April 26, 2016 6:00 AM EDT

Disaster by Design/Safety by Intent #29

Disaster by Design

Disaster by Design/Safety by Intent #26 described a progression leading to overheating and damage to a reactor core, often labeled a meltdown. Disaster by Design/Safety by Intent #27 described the damage to a reactor core that can result from reactivity excursions. Disaster by Design/Safety by Intent #28 and #29 mirror those commentaries by describing how irradiated fuel stored in spent fuel pools can experience damage from overheating and reactivity excursions. Read more >

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Kudos to Cuomo: New York Helps Prevent Degraded Bolts from Leading to Nuclear Disaster

, director, Nuclear Safety Project

April 7, 2016 9:00 AM EDT

Workers recently discovered that more than a quarter of the bolts holding the core former and core baffle plates together inside the Unit 2 reactor vessel at Indian Point in Buchanan, New York were degraded and required replacement. The bolts had not been routinely inspected since the reactor began operating in the mid-1970s. And the bolts may not have been inspected this year but for the efforts of the state of New York. Read more >

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Indian Point’s Baffling Bolts

, director, Nuclear Safety Project

March 31, 2016 10:52 AM EDT

On March 29, 2016, Entergy notified the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that workers had identified degradation of bolts used to assemble the core former and core baffle plates within the reactor pressure vessel on Indian Point Unit 2 (Fig. 1). Read more >

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Mis-steps at Indian Point Nuclear Plant

, director, Nuclear Safety Project

March 1, 2016 6:00 AM EDT

Disaster by Design/Safety by Intent #21

Disaster by Design

Growing up, I remember seeing a test pattern of the Emergency Broadcast System appear on our black and white television set accompanied by a really annoying high-pitched constant sound, followed by a voice telling us that “If this had been an actual emergency, you would have been instructed where to tune in your area for news and official information.” Read more >

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