New Legislation Proposed For Nuclear Safety

mdsolar writes "Recent problems at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant have spurred Congresspeople from Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire to introduce legislation that would allow State governors to request independent safety reviews of nuclear power plants. The reviews would exclude NRC employees who usually work on that plant and include non-NRC reviewers. This review model is based on one that found problems at Maine Yankee before it closed. Problems at Vermont Yankee have included a cooling tower collapse, a SCRAM caused by an un-greased valve, and failure of a safety system during the SCRAM. The plant is coming off of heightened review after shipping nuclear material with insufficient shielding. The plant's application for a 20 year license extension is also currently under review."

Comments

Entergy safety culture

[mdsolar]

Entergy, the company that has been buying up old reactors to try to run them harder as they reach then end of their design lifetimes gets quite a few safety related criticisms. They use solo guards at security posts so it is not too surprising that one was found asleep at Indian Point last month: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/08/27/ap405783 6.html. They were recently reprimanded for for a worker taking a nap at the Pilgrim Reactor as well. The Simpsons is reality based television.

They also try to cut costs by refueling quickly. They boast of 90% up-times because of their quick refueling, but with reduced staff, how can they manage to both refuel and to scheduled maintenance, or avoid deferring maintenance that cannot fit within the shortened down time window? In the present case they seem to even be willing to run at reduced power rather than to promptly address the broken cooling tower. Was the ungreased bearing that caused their SCRAM on a list that just got skipped to get more up time? They give the impression that controlling costs it their primary function. Installing required warning sirens at both Indian Point http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl e?AID=/20070830/NEWS01/708300442/1025/NEWS09 and Vermont Yankee http://www.reformer.com/headlines/ci_6835609 has been lagging. In Vermont they want Boy Scouts to distribute warning radios rather than doing it themselves.

Nuclear power does have a safety culture, using systems like lessons-learned to attempt to improve safety. But, pushing aging reactors past their design capacity or refueling faster with fewer people seem like lessons learned just waiting to happen. Shoestring methods lack the kind of redundancy that provides for safety margins.
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Rent solar power for you home: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Old reactors

[zeromorph]

I can't say how it is in the US but in Europe old reactors (that have been wriiten off) are very profitable - much more than newer ones. Since old reactors are more profitable but tend to be less secure, this is clearly a case were legislation has to intervene, it's just to dangerous.

Extern, independent reviews in such critical businesses cannot be wrong anyway.

Refueling Efficiency

[tjstork]

I wouldn't necessarily say that you need to have a mountain of people to refuel a reactor quickly. A lot of companies do refueling simulations apriori and can set up a pretty good refueling script without the need for as many drones.

And, honestly, the need for safety at a nuclear power plant is so overstated that you can tend to drone it out and thus ignore those things that really do need to be safe. For example, when a company installed guard towers at its nuclear plants, the biggest dispute was that neither union or management could agree on the steps. It's just absurd, and to some extent, really, the union used the steps on the guard tower as a negotiating plank to get more money, more than any concern for safety or the obvious admonition - hang on to the rails.

I like solar, too, but eough of the spam

[ishmalius]

I know it's a slow Sunday, but please, enough of the sales pitch.

I for one am hoping that US nuclear operators will begin investing in newer technology, like the pebble-bed reactor. This one is an old idea, but recently implemented. It is inherently safer than rods & dampers, and is unable to go into meltdown. And the reactors can be smaller and can be located closer to the power-users for efficiency and economy.