Cinch River Breeder Reactor, pen and Copic marker rendering by the author.
In most industries, when a random article of electrical equipment breaks, only a handful of people know: the engineers and techs who have to deal with it, whomever has to sign off on repairs or a new one, and maybe a few folks higher up.
That's not what happens in nuclear power in the United States.
This is in fact what happens—please, read it for yourself:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2013/20130808en.html
The mishap is reported to the NRC which in due turn writes up a memo and the whole nuclear world soon knows what happened. If someone so much as drops a drill bit at Plant Vogtle or removes a trackball from a mouse at H.B. Robinson, soon the whole industry and our federal regulatory agency knows and talks about it . . . well, perhaps that's taking it a bit far, but you get the picture.
No other industry in the United States—not even aviation, though it comes in a close second—has such high standards of stewardship.
This is why Minecraft, the computer game, is very unrealistic. Not because there are monsters or you can build a whole city in an hour, no, but because if anything goes wrong with your nuclear reactor in Minecraft, you don't get hit with a torrent of paperwork. That's obvious fantasy right there.
Incidents like these are something I love to tell people who have doubts in regard to nuclear about: they prove that we have an industry that could be perhaps accused of being a little . . . umm, over-the-top, when it comes to safety, but certainly not one that is poorly-regulated or not transparent. Have we learned from the rather scant indicents in our past? Yep. We now have the world's most-rigorous federal-level reporting and monitoring system in place—the best for any industry, anywhere, period.
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I'm sure you brought this event up as an example to illustrate your point. But I've looked at these event report pages daily for the last 2.5 years. One thing that really sticks out to me, compared to my first hand nuke experience which ended 20 years ago, is the number of plant trips now contributed to all flavors of electrical failures. They have become a significant percentage of the yearly total. It is possible these electrical event contributors are running at a constant, and better maintenance elsewhere has reduced other causes, so they just look like they are going up. But I doubt it. This stuff is all non-nuke equipment, and electric utilities (as well as other industry) are very experienced with it. When you have stuff like lightening arrestors, transformer insulators, isophase buses (no moving parts), main, aux, startup transformers, as well as generator faults frequently taking plants down, i suspect something is up. My first look would be at plant power up-rates; are they really looking at this stuff or totally focused on primary and secondary plant equipment. Just because the aux transformer nameplate rating says it is fine for the uprate, that was for a new transformer 30 years ago, with no aging or heating history of degradation, etc. In any case if they are now a large percentage of the total, you focus on prevention not recovery. For a recent event where a plant tripped from full power because someone decided that pressure washing the 345Kv line lightening arrestors at power was a good idea... well you just have to remove those folks from the process. mjd.
Thanks for that comment. I made the post to illustrate the very high level of both regulatory oversight and transparency in the nuclear industry, but if incidents are in fact starting to be appear more commonplace, that's of course also a very valid concern.
Anonymous writes with a realistic perspective with powerful implications.
Mike Walker's article deserves a real blowout follow-up. Thanks
Anonymous, can you be more clear on what you mean by a "blowout follow-up?". I wasn't sure whether you were supporting or in disagreement with my short op-ed here. My point, of course, is that the regulatory stewardship of nuclear power in the US is superb in that it is exacting and the NRC makes public the incident findings—even fairly minor ones—it is informed of, plus, having resident inspectors on site at nuclear plants, it has a capacity for oversight pretty much unmatched in most industries in the US, or elsewhere in the world. I agree with what the original "anonymous" poster stated about a seeming increase in incidents possibly due to aging equipment. I cannot say whether that's overall true or not, it's beyond the scope of this short article. I agree he has great points though. My focus, as my blog concerns the basal science, the history, and business/political side of nuclear more than the day-to-day operations of facilities, was to state that yes, the NRC takes notice of mishaps and yes, they report these in a transparent manner. Many anti-nuke folks will tell you that the NRC is the nuke industry's lapdog and that it is obscure in its transparency. I don't believe either point to be valid, and I think the type of response generated in the above example speaks to that.
Mike it's a good article that would only enhance our understanding of the nuclear fueled generation operations, if it were expanded on, in another article. However I have to agree with Anonymous that incomplete reports of nuclear facility problems, or shutdowns, are exploited and feed the anti-nuclear agenda. IMHO.
How much paperwork is TEPCO completing for hiding and than admitting it is leaking tons of water every day? The problem with nuclear is that the NRC doesn't regulate it across the world but the poor management of it in other places impacts perception. From Japan to Korea you have to wonder what else they are hiding?
MikeWalker, I am the 'original "anonymous" poster' though hardly anonymous, I signed mjd as I do all my posts. You said: "I agree with what the original "anonymous" poster stated about a seeming increase in incidents possibly due to aging equipment. I cannot say whether that's overall true or not, it's beyond the scope of this short article." A clarification; my observation is not entirely aging related. It is up-rates on aging equipment. Almost all the current nuke plants have done up-rates well into their life aging cycle. Aging must always be dealt with; my point is up-rates add a double whammy to the process. So possibly the up-rate process needs to add more focus to the electrical systems evaluation if indeed this type of fault is increasing as a percentage of the total trip frequency. Agree subject is off scope for this post, so maybe move the discussion. My observation seems valid to me, based on years of experience. My further point is there are in fact organizations that get paid to track such things, look for common cause, and provide OE feedback. After all the whole industry wants to reduce the number of unplanned trips. If my personal observation is correct, and I believe it is, it is easy to verify by these organizations for follow-up. I was speaking to them not you. Mjd.
MJD, thanks for your astute comments. I agree that the issues you raise certainly merit further consideration. My focus in this short op-ed was to relate how an incident—any incident at a US nuclear plant—is swiftly met with not only corporate remedy but also the NRC's oversight. I brought it up, and I realize writing about it here I'm preaching to the choir mainly, but I brought it up because a lot of anti-nuke activists I've met will say two things: 1) the NRC is a victim of "regulatory capture" and does what the nuclear industry tells it and 2) the NRC is obtuse and difficult to understand, hiding a lot of data from the public. These claims are obviously false, and in a future article I will detail why that is so in more depth. However, I felt this current incident and the NRC's response was worthy of note in support of the fact that oversight is rapid, conprehensive, and transparent. So, we have really two issues here: my issue of how incidents are responded to by the NRC and yours of why this specific type of incident occurs. Both are worthy of further discourse and I will probably cover both more in later articles. The immediate upcoming articles I'm planning to write however will be about history of the nuclear industry and to be more specific, of Admiral Rickover's programs towards a nuclear-powered navy.
Required Reading: Shippingport Pressurized Water Reactor. Lib of Congress Cat Card No. 58-12595. By personnel from NR Branch USAEC, Westinghouse Electric - Bettis, and Duquesne Light.Take note, it's a 1958 book. NB the ever present NR design RC loop and pressurizer isolation valves, high pressure containment, and try to find the HPI pumps (or any active ECCS equipment as we know it). "Everything old is new again"... SMRs. Then ask yourself if maybe something got missed after TMI?
Thanks for that. I have access to the University of Florida libraries and their nuclear engineering collection is pretty good, so I will check there for that book.
Actually, there was an incident in our area that involved a transformer and switchgear that did have an impact on peoples lives, though it was not in a nuclear facility.
About 10 years ago, a truck wth 20 tons of bananas lost its brakes on the long hill that leads to the Fort Pitt Tunnel on I 376 going into Pittsburgh. It went out of control and ran into the middle of the tunnel building between the 2 tubes, right where all the transformers and switchgear were. All the lights and ventilation went out and we were without a tunnel for 2 days. PennDot had to look all over the country to find replacement parts and have them installed. Traffic was snarled. We did hear about
"witchgear" on the news and not everyone is an electrician. PennDot could not run the tunnel dark as there would be carbon monoxide from no fans. I think the switchgear is not in a different part of the building.
Bob, there's no doubt that any technical problem along these lines be it at a nuclear or non-nuclear facility can have direct impact on consumers, yet what's amazing to me though in a sense is that with this sort of industrial problem—one where no one was injured—a Federal regulartory agency gets involved right away and their immediate report is made public to all. I think that's great, seriously, but it's rare oversight for any area of industry or business in the US. This isn't an issue of a local or state authority taking action but a Federal one and I feel it's a necessary and pragmatic action that should really provide comfort to those who doubt the safety of nuclear. The nuclear industry, more than any other industry, does not operate in a vacuum nor remote from regulatory stewardship at all.
