Skip to main content

NRC’s Post-Fukushima Review Adds Top Priority

By

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week released a staff paper that prioritizes the recommendations from the near-term post-Fukushima task force report into three tiers—or categories—of importance based on the potential to enhance safety at U.S. nuclear plants. As part of its Tier 1 recommendation, or actions that “should be started without unnecessary delay,” the NRC elevated the importance of implementing spent fuel pool instrumentation, or monitoring equipment, at U.S. nuclear energy facilities.

Why did the NRC elevate this issue? A Bloomberg article explains:

Improved cooling-pool equipment wasn’t listed as a concern warranting immediate NRC action in a Sept. 9 staff memo. Agency staff made it a priority after determining that resources exist to improve monitoring instruments, which aren’t often designed “to remain functional under accident conditions,” according to the report released today.

Moving the recommendation to the first tier does NOT indicate that current spent fuel pools are unsafe. In fact, the NRC has said that current operating nuclear plants “do not pose an imminent risk to public health and safety.” The re-prioritization of the issue likely comes from early lessons the NRC and industry have learned post-Fukushima on the need for remote monitoring of the pools.

In a September 26 letter to the NRC, which provides the industry’s position on the commission’s post-Fukushima recommendations, the industry shows how important it is for the NRC to act based on the facts from the accident.

The Fukushima spent fuel pools are an example of where facts have invalidated earlier conclusions. Shortly following the initial events, many believed that water levels in the pools—the Unit 4 pool, in particular—had fallen to the point that the spent fuel had overheated, failed and contributed to the accident. Now, with the benefit of visual inspections and samples from the four affected fuel pools, it is evident that the spent fuel rods did not experience major and significant failure.

The industry continues by saying that not having a clear understanding of the situation in a used fuel pool “could result in the diversion of needed resources away from more safety-significant activities.”

In learning this important lesson from Fukushima, the industry believes that:

Remote monitoring would enable operators to know when actions are needed to provide additional water to the pools. This recommendation is consistent with the action already taken by the industry on knowing the time until the pool will reach 200°F.

The industry fully supports the NRC’s decision to add the issue as a tier 1 priority in its near-term actions.

See NEI’s video to learn more about how spent fuel pools are designed and constructed to safely store used nuclear fuel.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

By
Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...
23 comments
Read more

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

By
You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...
6 comments
Read more

How Much Land Does Nuclear, Wind and Solar Really Need?

By
Not too long ago, we reviewed a report that looked at nuclear energy (and other energy sources) as biodiversity agents. This had to do, in part, with the amount of land a facility needs to function. Nuclear energy and fossil fuel plants use relatively little, wind farms and solar arrays quite a lot of land . Based on an objective and transparent analysis of our sustainable energy choices, we have come to the evidence-based conclusion that nuclear energy is a good option for biodiversity conservation (and society in general) and that other alternatives to fossil fuels should be subjected to the same cost–benefit analyses (in terms of biodiversity and climate outcomes, as well as sociopolitical imperatives) before accepting or dismissing them. Writer Barry Brook, who collected 75 scientists to endorse his paper, is interested in land use as it impacts flora and fauna. Biodiversity concerns do not get as much play as they might – and, when they do, it annoys many when land is withdraw...
4 comments
Read more