POWERFUL PRECAUTIONS: As nuclear power plants age, the need for rigorous safety supervision steadily mounts, industry experts say.
Image: ISTOCKPHOTO/MICHAELUTECH
On Nov. 4, 2008, two divers were cleaning sludge and silt from an entry bay for water pumps that serve Constellation Energy Nuclear Group's Nine Mile Point nuclear power plant near Oswego, N.Y.
In the midst of the operation, the diver and the hose tender shifted their positions and the diver lost control of a plastic suction hose, leaving its trailing section in front of one of the water pipe entries. The force of the water flow, at 9,000 gallons a minute, severed a section of hose and sucked it into one of the system's pumps, fouling it. As the team tried to cope with that problem, a smaller piece of the unattended free end of the hose was pulled into a second water pump, according to an inspection report by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
A sudden blockage of cooling water is one of the potential nightmares that nuclear power plant operators and regulators fear most. Although these pumps did not provide cooling water directly to the reactor, they supported other essential equipment, and in this case, other pumps were working. The incident did not create a safety threat to Nine Mile Point's No. 2 reactor, the NRC concluded.
But the NRC did find "significant weaknesses" in CENG's investigation of the incident and the corrective actions it took initially. The operators on duty did not look hard enough to understand the extent and severity of the incident, nor ensure that the pumps were operational after hose intrusion, NRC inspectors later determined.
Across the U.S. nuclear energy sector, plant owners are seeking -- and gaining -- NRC approval to run first-generation plants for 20 years beyond the original license period. Nine Mile Point Unit 1's operating license has been extended to 2029, and Unit 2 is cleared to run until 2046.
The Obama administration considers the 104 U.S. reactors a cornerstone of the nation's long-term quest to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. As the plants age, the need for rigorous safety supervision steadily mounts, industry experts stress.
The pumps incident landed CENG on the NRC's carpet, leading to apologies by company executives and pledges to improve the safety culture at the plant, whose first unit started up 40 years ago. The NRC is holding open its investigation of the incident pending a further inspection.
'We had tunnel vision'
In January, in a meeting with NRC staff, CENG Nine Mile Point site Vice President Sam Belcher summed up the incident as "pretty much an embarrassment. It pointed out we had missed some things we shouldn't have missed. ... We had tunnel vision to some degree. The fact we didn't go into is why the event occurred."
CENG says it has responded with a top-down review of safety processes and a campaign to make sure its employees across the company buy into the need for an exacting attention to safety.
NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said in November that while improving performance measures indicate that U.S. reactors are being operated safely, the industry must guard against "distraction and complacency" in meeting safety and security goals. Slower growth in power demand, and smaller profits in the industry, make the challenge greater, he said.
"The resurgence in interest [in nuclear power] is dependent upon the sustained faith and reliability performance of the current fleet," NRC Commissioner Kristine Svinicki said last year. "The nuclear industry remains ... just one incident away from retrenchment."
The oversight of CENG's plants brought company executives and NRC staff together for a daylong performance review at Constellation's Baltimore headquarters on Jan. 19.
See what we're tweeting about
19 Comments
Add CommentThere is little point investing in nuclear energy, when there is only enough uranium to last for 30 years at present rates of consumption. If more reactors are built, the time scale will be significantly reduced, meaning the new plant will never be economical.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would surely be better to invest in new technologies, such as decarbonising hydrocarbons to release hydrogen for pollution-free energy supplies. In that way the carbon can be safely discharged in land-fill, and complex refining would no longer be necessary. (This can also be done with methane gas)
the
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGoogle solar thermal. It does the same thing as nuclear - boils a pot of water, only with the sun.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGoogle solar thermal. It does the same thing as nuclear - boils a pot of water, only with the sun.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThermoelectric power accounts for 49% of total water withdrawals in the USA (USGS, 2009). Given imminent water wars, is this a wise choice of a basic, precious resource.
Read more at Suite101: Nuclear Power's Affect on Nation's Water Budget: Recirculation Saves More Water than 'Once-through Cooling' http://environmental-engineering.suite101.com/article.cfm/nuclear-powers-affect-on-nations-water-budget#ixzz0hhNMkvOG
The US nuclear power industry safety record is outstanding and it will stay this way because of tough self regulation, inspections and the NRC. Compare this to coal or worse natural gas and it is clear that Nuclear is the best option we have not just for reducing the US's Carbon footprint but for safe reliable power. I am curious why this type of investigative reporting wholly ignores other parts of the power industry. Only 1 month ago a billion dollar natural gas power plant exploded killing 5 people and injuring more than a dozen. (cnn article http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/07/connecticut.explosion/index.html) Yet, there has not been a single nuclear plant related death in 40 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe notion by eco-steve that there is only enough uranium to last for the next 30 years is 100% false. Even if it were true, there are other sources of fissionable material such as Thorium which the earth has enough of to last at current power consumption levels for 1000's of years.
With modern efficient generation 3.5 reactors able to use reprocessed and thorium fuels, a huge eighty year current supply of natural uranium and orders of magnitude more efficient fast breeder reactors there is sufficient nuclear fission fuel to last hundreds of years. Thorium is five times as abundant as uranium.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNuclear waste is valuable fuel for 4th gen reactors like the IFR. IFR's at $1B/Gw could supply all the world's power for hundreds of years on existing nuclear waste. The tiny amount of low level waste from IFR's is safe enough to put back in the mine. We need to build new types of nukes to clear the mess from the old types.
India's new nuke waste burning 500 Mw GenIV power plant coming into service next year at a cost of $1.5B/Gw. Six years construction time for first of a kind.
In general, complex large scale systems are built to meet expected or specified longevity requirements with specified maintenance and service requirements. Production costs are minimized within specifications. As a result, nothing lasts forever, and system failures occur more frequently as equipment ages. Meanwhile, there is an enormous financial incentive to continue operation of amortized equipment rather than investing capital in new equipment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy 1993 Ford is still fundamentally sound and meets all safety regulations in effect at the time of its production. With about $1,000 maintenance annually I expect to continue using it some time. However, the risk of catastrophic failure contaminating my neighborhood is negligible.
This is just a bunch of propaganda, B.S. and disinformation, pumped out by shills of the fossil fuel industry - to try to block clean, green Nuclear Energy from stealing market share from them. Case in point:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTake the effort to get Vermont Yankee closed - for some Mickey Mouse Tritium leak, that released a trillionth of a curie, vs a self-illuminating exit sign contains 15-30 curies of tritium.
Turns out, the major "environmental" group fighting to get the Nuclear Power Plant closed is The Conservation Law Foundation, which is directly affiliated with CLF Ventures, who’s major client at the moment is a AES Corporation which is building a 720 MW combined-cycle natural gas fired power plant, next door in New Hampshire.
CLF Ventures business also supplies nuclear decommissioning services, and just happens (according to their website) to have a comprehensive Site Closure Plan for Vermont Yankee.
http://yesvy.blogspot.com/2010/02/follow-money.html
At the same time, these same "environmental" organizations have been totally silent about the recent NG explosion that killed 6 workers. Amazing how easy one gasfitter with a valve can destroy a $1B NG power plant and kill all those people. Sounds like an excellent terrorist target to me. Especially since they like to build those things right close to population centers.
http://depletedcranium.com/information-comes-out-about-kleen-energy-explosion/
A tiny few of the many NG explosions, there's a lot more of those coming:
1944, Cleveland, 180 killed and one sq. mile of Cleveland destroyed
1937, New London Texas, 300 students & teachers killed
1968, Richmond, Indiana, 41 killed, 150 injured, 4 sq blocks of city heavily damaged
1988, North Sea, 167 dead
1992, Guadalajara, 206 killed, 500 injured, 15,000 homeless
2004, Arkhangelsk, Russia, 58 killed
1996, Puerto Rico, 33 killed.
Undoubtedly, NG causes 1000's of deaths in the USA due to the pollution it creates, NOx, CO & Particulates mainly.
Natural Gas radiation:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=marcellus-shale-natural-gas-drilling-radioactive-wastewater
dwbd - To get back to the question of risk assessment for older nuclear power plants, which catastrophic failure of non-nuclear processes or equipment produced consequences comparable to the Chernobyl failure? In terms of longevity of affects, I suggest that sum of all non-nuclear failures cannot match the potential impact of a single nuclear failure.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's stupid to call Chernobyl case an accident. They were disabling safety systems in order to run tests in the middle of the night. Then the system run out of control and caused hydrogen blast that broke the building and ignited the graphite causing a fire. As far as I know there are no graphite reactors in USA, so such an idioticy is not possible to duplicate. I think the worst possibility is the meltdown of the reactor in case the cooling can not be maintained.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJokunen - Its ignorant to ignore the potential consequences of a catastrophic nuclear power plan failure, even if the probability of failure is acceptably low, as judged by interested parties, including regulatory groups.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article referred to critical procedural errors that, fortunately, were judged to have no impact of safe operations.
I think it'd be most convenient for those interested in nuclear power generation to live in the immediate vicinity of a nuclear power plant.
Eco-Steve: According to this article of SA there is over 200 years of viably mined uranium for current reactor use.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last
Others have already mentioned other materials which can be substituted.
Another important aspect of nuclear reactor development that I haven't seen mentioned in these comments is further scientific and technological advancement. Perhaps developing nuclear reactors will help the development of sustainable fusion power.
Emporer : According to the latest figures of the International Atomic Agency, there is enough uranium at present rates of consumption for 30 years, extensible to 50 years taking into account possible ores after extensive prospection. You are considering possible advances in nuclear technology which have not yet been proven. I don't count chickens before they have been hatched....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEco-Steve: I believe that humans are very capable creatures with not only visions of "possible advances" but the tenacity, creativity and intelligence to bring those ideas to fruition.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suspect you believe that too. "It would surely be better to invest in new technologies, such as decarbonising hydrocarbons to release hydrogen for pollution-free energy supplies." This is a direct quote from you comment. By using the word invest I can only assume that you're aware that your talking about technologies that are possibly decades away from maturity. Or in other words.... possible advances.
I don't necessarily need a chicken; sometimes and omelet is good enough.
The most pessimistic situations of a full meltdown in a U.S. LWR cannot reach the level disaster reached in the Chernobyl accident. As a real life example, the TMI accident was a full failure of so many safety systems that it is difficult to imagine much else going wrong. Yet there have been zero deaths and zero injuries directly attributed to the accident. There are a number of misconceptions about the dangers of radiation that are consistently perpetuated in news media and politicians that any mention of the word 'nuclear' or radiation incites fear in the average person. A great article that I encourage all to read concerning evaluating the risks associated with nuclear power written by Ted Rockwell can be found on his blog at:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.learningaboutenergy.com/nuclear-energy-facts-report/
"I think it'd be most convenient for those interested in nuclear power generation to live in the immediate vicinity of a nuclear power plant."
I think you can reasonably assume that they do live in the immediate vicinity. How else would they commute to work?
The Flying Saucer Technology has another spin-off: A very low-cost ING.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe can have uranium being radiated by a small ING and immediatedly use the results for power generation.
1) It is inherently unethical to produce waste that maintains its toxic and mutagenic concentrations for 460,000 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2) Nukes are more complicated than jets to operate with a potential for 5 orders of magnitude more damage from a catastrophic failure. Care to count the failure rates of 40 year old jets? The nuke industry is damn lucky to have its favorable catastrophic failure rate and it can only deteriorate from here.
3) Even the best plant technicians have bad days and all of the training and efforts of the best technicians can be undermined by a disgruntled employee or the feeble efforts of minimum wage security fleeing from determined intruders.
4) The front end and back end of the fuel cycle occur in open country with total reliance upon Joe Six-pack and short range profit motivated corporations controlling the highly toxic and mutagenic constituents. Any nutcase with an RPG can make short work of a high level waste canister in the middle of an urban center and there will be many thousands of such waste transports.
Emporer : 12 years ago technology to pyrolyse biomass didn't exist. Today it is not only a proven, adaptable technology to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but is earning money. But 5,000,000 units still need to be sold to inverse climate Change!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDecarbonising hydrocarbons use the same technology, but needs new money to get validated then getting rapidly to market.
As you say, this takes time, one thing we have little of if we are to meet international green deadlines.
See www.eprida.com for details of modern pyrolysis research.