August 23, 2018 6:00 AM EDT
Role of Regulation in Nuclear Plant Safety 9
The Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Delta, Pennsylvania is known for its tireless workers. They stop working long before getting tired and nap while on duty. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) treated the nuclear nappers as naughty in 1987 but as nice in 2007. The reason for such disparate handling of the same problem isn’t apparent. Maybe if I took a nap it would come to me in a dream. Read more >
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 >
December 6, 2016 6:00 AM EDT
Disaster by Design/ Safety by Intent #61
Safety by Intent
Picture a driver distracted by tuning the car’s radio or reading a very clever roadside billboard and unknowingly traveling through a stop sign without even slowing down. Due to good fortune, the driver neither hits another vehicle nor gets hit.
Upon realizing the stop sign had been run, the driver could have two reactions. Based on the actual outcome, the driver could conclude that less time would be wasted in the future by simply not stopping at stop signs and red lights any more. Or, based on what could have happened, the driver could resolve to pay better attention to traffic safety signs. Read more >
August 2, 2016 6:00 AM EDT
Disaster by Design/ Safety by Intent #43
Disaster by Design
There are currently two empty positions on the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). If comedian Jeff Foxworthy were nominated and confirmed to become a Commissioner, you wonder how he would finish the nuclear safety equivalent of his “redneck” routine?
You might be operating an unsafe reactor if …
This Ending Intentionally Blank Read more >
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 >
