WASHINGTON — Federal nuclear regulators have given America’s nuclear
plants until July 1 to demonstrate they are ready for Y2K. Some of them
won’t make the deadline.
Not to worry, says the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear trade group responsible for getting
facilities Y2K-ready. NEI says work not expected to be completed by
July 1 could have an impact on power generation, but not on safety. And,
it adds, all those problems will be fixed well before Jan. 1, 2000.
NEI officials explained their progress this week to senior managers
and staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
the federal agency responsible for the safe operation of nuclear
facilities. WorldNetDaily was the only press to cover the meeting — an
indication of the print media’s lack of concern about nuclear safety
issues related to Y2K.
Jim Davis, director of operations at the Nuclear Energy Institute,
was the group’s chief spokesman at the meeting. He was accompanied by
Ralph Beedle, NEI’s senior vice president and chief nuclear officer.
“Safety is our number one consideration,” Davis said, “and we’re
satisfied we can shut down any plant safely if necessary.” Having taken
care of the safety issue, he added, “the broader issue is our continued
ability to generate power, and we’ve spent more time on this.”
Davis explained that the July 1 reports will cover the Y2K-readiness
of “critical systems — those needed for safety and power generation —
as well as important systems which, while not critical, impact the
facility as a whole.” Payroll systems, for example, are very important
for business continuity but do not have a direct impact on safety or
power generation.
“The industry has looked at approximately 200,000 items,” Davis
reported, “and of these, about 10,000 — or 5 percent — have required
some sort of remediation. We’ve been collecting data on how many plants
have ‘open items’ that won’t be ready. We will follow up on those open
items, getting a monthly report from those facilities, and we plan to
make this list public on our website.”
In March 1999, NEI had identified 62 “open items” at 20 facilities.
He wouldn’t speculate on how many of those are now remediated, but did
give some examples of the kinds of problems still to be fixed.
“Four plants have had problems with feedwater regulation,” Davis
said. “This is not critical,” he explained, but you have to close down
the plant for five days to fix the problem, “and it’s appropriate to do
this in the fall rather than during the peak summer season. Also, in
each case the facility has experience doing this. Three of the four
have already scheduled their maintenance outage.”
(In the course of operating a nuclear reactor, some water is always
being removed for cleanup and replaced with new water. “Feedwater
regulation” refers to this computer control function.)
Some facilities are also reporting problems with their plant process
computers. “Plants work perfectly well without process computers,”
Beedle added in, “but I still have to comply with regulations and report
that kind of problem.”
The plant process computer gives plant operators a comprehensive
color-coded “read” on the plant. It monitors the major plant systems
and their functions. If there’s an irregularity in one of the systems,
that information is fed to the computer, and if that anomaly continues,
an alarm is triggered.
“What can you say about critical systems?” asked Frank
Miraglia, a senior official at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “Will
all of those be ready by July 1?”
“Are we finding anything that would affect our ability to shut down a
plant safely? No,” responded Beedle. “Are we finding anything that
would affect power continuity? Yes.”
“Safety is not the issue at this point,” Davis added. “Everything we
are addressing has to do with power continuity.”
“My projection,” Davis continued, “is that we’re going to find a
short list of problems on July 1. Since most plants will have at least
one or two ways to handle those problems, we’ll find no issues that will
affect safety or require shutdown.”
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Electric Institute
plan to compile and evaluate the facility reports as they arrive, and
then issue a report to the public somewhere between July 7 and July 12.
Tomorrow: The nuclear contingency plans.
David Franke may be reached by e-mail.
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