NEI Nuclear Notes

Government shutdown has been all the rage in Washington lately. Appropriations run out at the end of September, also the end of the fiscal year, and the government cannot fully function without them. Well, it can – it’s not like the treasury is empty aside from moths and dust – but without passing appropriation legislation, none of that money can be divvied among government functions, thus shutdown. Now, obviously, essential activities continue regardless. When the government last shut down in 2013, the Department of Homeland Security furloughed about 15 percent of its workforce. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sidelined about 90 percent of its staff. Nothing “bad” happened, or was expected to, but it’s not a good situation. There is a notable difference between DHS (and many other government agencies) and the NRC. NRC is 90 percent funded by the industry it oversees; in many ways, it’s a fee-for-service entity and one where the key goal, like that of DHS, is to protect p...

Every once in a while NEI's media team has to call out a journalist for egregiously unbalanced coverage. Today is one such day. Jenner Deal, “reporting” for Business Insider , produced a wildly unbalanced video , replete with anti-nuclear activist views and horror-film ominous sound, in labeling the Diablo Canyon Power Plant a "Fukushima waiting to happen." The report wasn't entirely erroneous -- Deal got Diablo's acreage, location, and surrounding population correct. But thereafter her reporting lapses badly into anti-nuclear activism. "Many fear that a single earthquake could cause a repeat of the 2011 Fukushima disaster," Deal claims in the intro to her video. Actually, very few outside of California's anti-nuclear activist community do; scores of independent geologists and seismologists who've studied the site do not. Nor does the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission , which has the authority to shut down Diablo Canyon or any other nuclear...

On Wednesday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold a hearing on the combined construction and operating license (COL) for DTE Energy’s proposed Fermi 3 reactor. This is notable for at least two reasons. It is the first license application that uses GE Hitachi’s ESBWR reactor design as its basis(the ones under construction at Vogtle and Summer are Westinghouse AP1000s.). This design was itself approved last September . And since there was a patiently waiting queue of COL applicants using this same design, it is now moving. ESBWR stands for Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor. Assuming all goes well on Wednesday, does this guarantee a new reactor in Michigan? Well, guarantee might be a bit strong. To be judicious, let’s say for now that it opens the door to a new reactor – or should we say reactors. DTE Energy will be followed in the queue by Dominion (for Virginia’s North Anna), NextEra (Florida’s Turkey Point) and South Texas Project. Any or all of these companies...

We read all the time about various data breaches that cause – potentially, anyway – a good deal of pain. Probably the best known example recently was the theft of over 40 million credit card numbers from Target last year, which has led to a lawsuit from the companies that had to replace all those cards and a class action suit from disgruntled customers. We’ve no brief on Target’s cyber security strategy, except that we expect it to get a full review. But it certainly suggests the value of a good cyber security program:  defending what must be defended to ensure the public good. Cyber security at nuclear energy plants – and all essential infrastructure - is extremely important because the potential for malicious mischief is very high – not from thieves as much as terrorists and others who want to cripple the electricity grid or cause a radioactive release. Stealing credit cards can be discomforting, but attacking a nuclear facility could have grave impacts. For these and ...

I wanted to return to Jeff Donn's piece from earlier this week concerning nuclear safety inspections . As I mentioned in a post from last night, I've been working with NEI's Jim Slider on taking a closer look at it. Jim is an old pro who has worked in the nuclear industry for more than 35 years, beginning his career at NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation as a design basis accident analyst. One of the first things I asked Jim about concerned the figures that Donn cited in his report. According to the story, the GAO report AP obtained a copy of said that NRC cited 10,776 "low-level" violations and 257 "higher-level" violations at U.S. nuclear plants between 2000 and 2012 (see page 3 of the AP story that was posted at ABCNews.com for the aggregate numbers). Those data points puzzled Jim because according to the Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) that NRC instituted in 2000, NRC categorizes inspection violations from 1 (most significant) to 4 (...

We haven’t talked much about the partial government shutdown because it isn’t our brief – and honestly, who hasn’t been bloviating about it lately? But it did lead the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to depend, at least for awhile, on money described as “carryover” funds to fully operate. Now, that’s gone, too, so the agency has suspended many of its activities : Beginning on Thursday, we will not conduct non-emergency reactor licensing, reactor license renewal amendments, emergency preparedness exercises, reviews of design certifications or rulemaking and regulatory guidance. Also suspended for now will be routine licensing and inspection of nuclear materials and waste licensees, Agreement State support and rulemakings, including Waste Confidence. This is just a short list of the actions we are prohibited from performing under Anti-deficiency Act restrictions. Obviously, the NRC will continue to fund the resident inspectors at the individual facilities, because they’re safe...

Jerry Paul Earlier this week, Jerry Paul , a former deputy administrator at the National Nuclear Security Administration , took aim at a study that came out of UT-Austin in August concerning nuclear power plant security . The following passage comes from an op-ed that appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram . These are dangerous times. Nuclear security is a serious topic. It calls for assessment by serious people willing to do the hard work of real research. There is nothing wrong with an academician or anyone else, including political activists, raising questions about public topics including security and even nuclear security. But it should be done in a responsible way and should be based on facts. If conclusions are to be marketed as university “research,” they should be backed by credible data, authoritative sources’ expertise and peer reviews by unbiased experts. Merely using the word “nuclear” in a title should not qualify written work for a lower standard of acade...

Even though the mainstream media has moved on to other topics, there are still a number of other facts we've uncovered concerning the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project and its supposed relationship to the Department of Defense (DoD) . Earlier this week, a reporter from NEI's Nuclear Energy Overview made a phone call to the Pentagon to get some clarification about the exact relationship between DoD and the published report . Here's an excerpt: The U.S. Department of Defense did not request or validate a recent study on security at America’s nuclear energy facilities by the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project, a DOD official said. “The Department of Defense did provide funding to the University of Texas at Austin, but did not request a report on that specific topic, nor did we validate its findings,” the Defense Department official said. That's what we all suspected, but it's nice to get it on the record. We'll have more if events warrant.

As our readers will recall, we spent a considerable amount of time last week responding to a "study" issued by the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project on the security of nuclear energy facilities here in the U.S.  Over the weekend, Jim Conca, a blogger for Forbes, took a closer look at the report, and made a number of interesting points  (emphasis added in bold): Those of us who have actually worked within the nuclear complex can tell you this study is grossly flawed. You need only read the limited source materials the author used in making her case and the absence of any references that contradict her thesis. And the lack of any expert review. But if you read the press on this report, it sounds like it was actually commissioned by the “Office of the Secretary of Defense, which provided financial support for the research”. Inquiries to DoD say the report was not requested by the department. DoD just funds the program as a whole at the University and has no knowle...

A few minutes ago, NEI issued a statement concerning the security of the nation's 100 operating nuclear reactors . The statement comes in response to the release yesterday of a report by the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project . Here's the nut graf: A report by a graduate research assistant at the University of Texas’ Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project, released Aug. 15, is an academic paper developed for discussion among academia of the appropriate security levels at nuclear energy facilities. It is not a full assessment of security, nor does the author of the report have access to the safeguarded information that she would need to make such as assessment . Like many such evaluations that examine the potential theft of uranium fuel from commercial reactors, the NPPP report fails to explain how attackers would be able to dislodge highly irradiated uranium fuel—800 to 1,200-pound, 18-foot-tall fuel bundles—and maneuver them from reactors, storage pools or steel an...

Nuclear plants are widely acknowledged to be the best-defended facilities among the nation’s critical infrastructure. Critical, independent security experts share the industry’s belief that nuclear power plants are very well-defended, particularly in comparison to other elements of the nation’s industrial infrastructure. These include assessments from the the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security . The robustness of our industry's security isn't the easiest topic to address in great detail; appropriately, key security features for our sites are Safeguards Information. Still, this NEI video treatment of site security does offer some much-needed perspective relative to reports like today's from Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project ( NPPP ). There's a common/recurring flaw in many such evaluations of nuclear plant security: they ever fail to explain how attackers upon a nuclear power plant will be able to dislodge high...

Do the regulated always feel overregulated? One day’s delivery brings a directive stipulating that the sidewalks must be widened to permit two wheelchairs to cross paths without bumping. Another says the school cafeteria must be made accessible by elevator. Trees must be trimmed of branches six feet up their trunks, the orders go, and only government-certified technicians can change a light bulb on city property. This is from a story in the Washington Post about a small French town (pop. 600) called Albaret-Sainte-Marie and its relationship with regulators in Paris. Now, except for the light bulb changing, all these directives could have truly beneficial outcomes, making life easier for a slice of the population, notably the disabled slice, but if various agencies are all putting their stamps onto the daily life of Albaret-Sainte-Marie simultaneously, the result could drain the town’s resources and kill the town’s overall civic effort to enable a better life for its people...

Earlier today, the Washington Post published an opinion piece by Phillip Lipscy, Kenji Kushida and and Trevor Incert entitled, " Protecting nuclear plants from nature's worst ." Steve Kerekes, NEI's Director of Media Relations, left the following comment in response at WashingtonPost.com : This is a pathetic case of opportunistic fear-mongering. To the extent that there really is public concern about U.S. nuclear plants’ ability to withstand extreme events, it centers around what MIGHT happen in fantastical scenarios. This week, here’s what actually DID happen: The largest Atlantic storm ever recorded slammed into the New Jersey shore, creating record human and property devastation, yet every nuclear energy facility in this super-storm’s path – including the oldest nuclear plant in operation – managed through it safely and expertly with no threat or damage. Every … single … one. Does this mean we should stop looking for safer ways to operate? Of course not, and...

Pete Dietrich, SCE For most of 2012, the nuclear industry has been keeping a close watch on the situation at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, where continuing issues with the plant's steam generators have kept both units offline. As NEI member company and plant manager Southern California Edison (SCE) has been investigating the source of the problem, it has faced a unique challenge with its own employees: how to communicate about the situation when the path forward is uncertain. In the following guest post, SCE's Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer Pete Dietrich describes how he and his team embraced this unique set of circumstances. Today's post is the first in an ongoing series concerning the status of the plant. Part 1 – Aligning the understanding and expectations of a large plant workforce when the path forward is uncertain At 3:05 p.m. this past Jan.31, control room operators at our San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station detected a small ste...

Dry cask storage It is not every day that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission   advises everyone to “take a deep breath,” but when it comes to people misconstruing the facts about new plant licensing activities following a recent order, that is exactly what happened. In a nutshell—last week, the NRC issued an order saying that it would not issue final reactor licenses or license renewals until the agency addresses a recent federal court ruling on waste confidence. Many people and some news articles mistakenly reported that this means all current licensing reviews and proceedings will come to a screeching halt, which is simply not the case. The order basically means that licensing reviews will move forward, but that final licensing will be put on hold. The NRC clarified its position in a blog post late last week: Let’s be clear: Tuesday’s Order was not a “Full Stop” to NRC’s licensing process. The Commission stated that licensing reviews should move forward—only final lic...

The following guest post was submitted by NEI Media Manager, Mitch Singer. Perhaps it’s asking too much in today’s media climate (no pun intended), but it would’ve been nice if Ginger Zee refrained from making the flippant comment on America This Morning that cooling ponds near nuclear plants are “either getting too low or too warm for the plants to function safely.” Ginger’s wrong on a number of accounts. Safety is paramount to the nuclear industry and all plants have contingency plans in place to adjust to extreme weather conditions and continue operating, albeit at a lower electrical power output. All nuclear power plants operate under their respective states’ water discharge permits and when the water’s ambient temperature reaches a certain level the plant’s power output must be lowered. Thus, they continue to “function safely.” The Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) provides a great example of how in spite of extre...

We just got the news a few minutes ago that the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) has presented an award for in depth reporting (3rd place) to Jeff Donn of the Associated Press for his series on the safety of nuclear energy facilities. When the series first appeared in June 2011, NEI had this to say : The coverage has factual errors, fails to cite relevant reports on safety that contradict the reporting, and raises questions about historic operating issues while ignoring more recent evidence of improved performance in areas that it examines. As it turns out, we're not the only ones who found the series wanting. Specifically, I'm referring to the prestigious Columbia Journalism Review : [T]he AP series, while it tackles a critically important public policy issue, suffers from lapses in organization, narrative exposition, and basic material selection, what to leave in and what to leave out. Too much is left to rest on inconclusive he-said-she-said exchanges that e...

Yesterday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that the month of June experienced 170 all-time high temperature records being broken or tied throughout the country. They also reported that the first half of 2012 has been the warmest first half period on record back to 1895. As such, we wanted to share that most all of the U.S. nuclear plants were humming along at full power during June, helping provide electricity to air conditioners to keep all of us cool during these hot times. Below are three charts breaking out the daily availability data from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission which we aggregated based on the North American Electric Reliability Council they belong to. You can find the list of plants and their region on page 4 of this report . The following chart shows a daily average of the 104 nuclear units. Overall, the U.S. fleet was running at a steady average availability of 90.5% during the last four weeks. And the last chart shows the NER...

After a whirlwind three days in Charlotte at NEA 2012, I'm back in Washington. And while I'm done unpacking my suitcase at home, we're not done unpacking all of the content we created during the conference. One of the highlights of the conference had to be a roundtable discussion on industry safety and Fukushima that was moderated by NEI's Chief Nuclear Officer Tony Pietrangelo. Joining Tony were Chip Pardee of Exelon , David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists and Bill Borchardt of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission . Luckily, we captured the entire discussion on video, and will be sharing it with you as soon as we're able to get the clip processed and uploaded to our YouTube Channel . In addition, we'll also be combing the questions that were submitted for the session that our panelists weren't able to answer due to time constraints. Among my favorite moments from the conference had to be getting to see the pride and joy on the faces o...

This morning at around 10:00 a.m. U.S. EDT, NEI's Chief Nuclear Officer, Tony Pietrangelo, will chair a panel session at the 2012 Nuclear Energy Assembly entitled, "Ensuring Operational Safety While Implementing Lessons Learned from Fukushima." Panelists for the session include: Charles G. Pardee, Chief Operating Officer, Exelon Generation Company, LLC  R. William Borchardt, Executive Director for Operations, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission  David Lochbaum, Director, Nuclear Safety Project, Union of Concerned Scientists  As part of our effort to better leverage social media, we'll be taking questions for panel members from online audiences. You can submit your question either by sending an email to questions@nei.org or simply tweeting the question with the conference hashtag, #NEA2012. Here's hoping our readers can participate.