Skip to main content

The Evening Update

By

From NEI’s Japan Earthquake launch page:

UPDATE AS OF 7:00 PM EDT, MARCH 23:

Commissioners at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday voted to launch a two-pronged review of U.S. nuclear power plant safety in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and the resulting events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The commission supported the establishment of an agency task force that will conduct both short- and long-term analysis of the lessons that can be learned from the situation in Japan. The results of their work will be made public.

“The longer-term review will inform any permanent NRC regulation changes” that are needed, the NRC said. The commission said it expects that the task force can begin the long-term evaluation in no later than 90 days, and added that the task force should provide a report with recommended actions within six months of the beginning of that effort.

NRC inspectors at U.S. nuclear power plants will also support the task force’s short-term effort, supplemented as necessary by experts from the agency’s regional and headquarters offices, the NRC said.

“Examining all the available information from Japan is essential to understanding the event’s implications for the United States. We will perform a systematic and methodical review to see if there are changes that should be made to our programs and regulations to ensure protection of public health and safety,” NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said.

Fukushima Daiichi

Smoke seen coming from the reactor building at reactor 3 on at 4:20 p.m. on Wednesday (Japan time) “decreased significantly,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said.  On Wednesday, smoke from reactor 3 caused the temporary evacuation of workers from reactors 3 and 4.

Efforts are continuing to restore offsite electricity at reactors 1, 2, 3, and 4.

As reported earlier here, seawater injection continues to cool reactors 1, 2 and 3. Seawater is being sprayed into the reactor 3 spent fuel pool. Crews continued to use a truck to deliver high volumes of water into the spent fuel pool at reactor 4, IAEA said.

Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
I'm puzzled how Tokyo's water supply got contaminated. Any info would be sincerely appreciated.
March 24, 2011 at 9:54 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Making Clouds for a Living

By
Donell Banks works at Southern Nuclear’s Plant Vogtle units 3 and 4 as a shift supervisor in Operations, but is in the process of transitioning to his newly appointed role as the daily work controls manager. He has been in the nuclear energy industry for about 11 years.

I love what I do because I have the unique opportunity to help shape the direction and influence the culture for the future of nuclear power in the United States. Every single day presents a new challenge, but I wouldn't have it any other way. As a shift supervisor, I was primarily responsible for managing the development of procedures and programs to support operation of the first new nuclear units in the United States in more than 30 years. As the daily work controls manager, I will be responsible for oversight of the execution and scheduling of daily work to ensure organizational readiness to operate the new units.

I envision a nuclear energy industry that leverages the technology of today to improve efficiency…
Post a Comment
Read more

Why America Needs the MOX Facility

By
If Isaiah had been a nuclear engineer, he’d have loved this project. And the Trump Administration should too, despite the proposal to eliminate it in the FY 2018 budget.

The project is a massive factory near Aiken, S.C., that will take plutonium from the government’s arsenal and turn it into fuel for civilian power reactors. The plutonium, made by the United States during the Cold War in a competition with the Soviet Union, is now surplus, and the United States and the Russian Federation jointly agreed to reduce their stocks, to reduce the chance of its use in weapons. Over two thousand construction workers, technicians and engineers are at work to enable the transformation.

Carrying Isaiah’s “swords into plowshares” vision into the nuclear field did not originate with plutonium. In 1993, the United States and Russia began a 20-year program to take weapons-grade uranium out of the Russian inventory, dilute it to levels appropriate for civilian power plants, and then use it to produce…
Post a Comment
Read more

Nuclear: Energy for All Political Seasons

By
The electoral college will soon confirm a surprise election result, Donald Trump. However, in the electricity world, there are fewer surprises – physics and economics will continue to apply, and Republicans and Democrats are going to find a lot to like about nuclear energy over the next four years.

In a Trump administration, the carbon conversation is going to be less prominent. But the nuclear value proposition is still there. We bring steady jobs to rural areas, including in the Rust Belt, which put Donald Trump in office. Nuclear plants keep the surrounding communities vibrant.

We hold down electricity costs for the whole economy. We provide energy diversity, reducing the risk of disruption. We are a critical part of America’s industrial infrastructure, and the importance of infrastructure is something that President-Elect Trump has stressed.

One of our infrastructure challenges is natural gas pipelines, which have gotten more congested as extremely low gas prices have pulled m…
Post a Comment
Read more