nuclear-news

Three U.S. Nuclear Plants Get Poor Marks from NRC

 Power 05/30/2018 | Darrell Proctor 

Officials with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) plan to hold a public hearing May 31 on the safety record of the Arkansas Nuclear One power plant in Arkansas, whose two units are among three cited by the agency for poor performance and other problems in its annual assessment of the nation’s nuclear fleet.

The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts, which has been dogged by equipment and other problems over the past several months and has been offline most of this year, also is listed as a Category 4 plant by the NRC. Entergy already has said it will close Pilgrim by mid-year 2019.

The NRC ranks nuclear facilities in five categories, with Category 1 designating a safe-performing plant, down to Category 5, which requires a plant to close until NRC inspectors sign off on corrective actions. Victor Dricks, senior public affairs officer with the NRC, told POWER the agency has never placed a unit in Category 5……..

The Arkansas meeting is one of a number of upcoming public sessions scheduled by the NRC at plants across the country to discuss the group’s safety reports. The agency this week said it would continue with additional oversight of TVA’s Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, after an undisclosed security violation at the plant last fall.  …….

Information on the NRC’s oversight of commercial nuclear power plants is available through the NRC’s webpage on the Reactor Oversight Process.  http://www.powermag.com/three-us-nuclear-plants-get-poor-marks-from-nrc/

June 1, 2018 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA