Connecting the Dots on ANO and Recent Nuclear industry Issues

My theme is there was documented and known issues these plants were entering a abyss by the NRC...but the NRC was prevented to act by Congress. Prevented from seeing the big Picture. I really don't think the rank and file NRC inspector has the requisite education and experience to even be a NRC inspector.   

This all looks like jumping flees to me...Palisades, Vermont Yankee, ANO, Pilgrim and now River Bend and Waterford. 

So basically the function of the NRC is to stay away from a serious off site radiation event(meltdown)...their job is not to keep the industry palatable to the public and orderly. Risk perspectives does that for them. I think the demarcation of a serious accident like TMI and Fukushima is is blurry as hell to the agency and at the plant. More, the danger line is almost unquantifiable, as least through the component worth and isolated risk calculation of components and systems. Basically risk perspectives is worthless.It is grossly oversold as a protect scheme for our nation...

Why doesn't risk perspectives focus the agency to look at the right areas in the below plant events...anticipate these events. Why didn't the NRC informed by risk perspective, step in and knock heads before these events emerged from the bureaucracy of organizations. Really, the events below are seen months and years before the events occur. They are organization centric events, not components, systems and electronics centric events.

Really congress is regulating the plant inspectors and the NRC...limiting their interaction and field of view with the goings on in the plants. We strictly follow the rules, but are we really allowed to see everything and is the plants required to show everything. It more a child's peekaboo going on in the USA between a plant and the NRC.

Jan 2015 Pilgrim

March 2013 ANO

March 2012 San Onofre

June 2011 Fort Calhoun

As example, if the NRC can't anticipate and head off...being situationally aware... in the four plant events above, how do you expect them to head off a meltsown or other significant industry events.

Post findings on these plants for the events, they discovered years of known problems not openly confronted by the NRC. It is as if we got two regulatory policies, one declared and the other not seen by outsider until a big event makes transparent the agency negligence over many years. The truth is, congress never punishes the NRC for allowing a plant to operate outside regulation. The NRC is mostly on the day to day events in these plant a god unto themselves. The big problem is agency knows they are not constrained by higher levels of government. The giant electric utilities are just a too powerful political force unconstrained  political campaign contribution. Really not bounded by the ideals of our perfect constitution. The NRC acts like a totalitarian force for big business, unafraid of getting thrown out of office by the voters. Ultimately they are a power unto themselves and nobody is required to tell the complete truth.       

Why aren't we asking ourselves and NRC, is our NRC just as inflexible as the Japanese's Nuclear Regulatory Authority. Have we regulated the inspectors more than the plants? Is the NRC and the public only getting a very limited field of view...has Congress set up the system for that by campaign contribution. 

January 22, 2016 5:30 pm JST 

IAEA urges Japan to enhance technical competence for nuclear restarts 

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday that Japan should "strengthen its technical competence," after a team of experts of the U.N. nuclear watchdog concluded a 12-day mission the same day to assess the regulatory framework for nuclear and radiation safety in Japan. 

The country's Nuclear Regulation Authority "needs to further strengthen its technical competence in light of upcoming restarts of nuclear facilities" idled after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the team said in its initial report. The final mission report will be released in about three months.

The latest Integrated Regulatory Review Service followed the first review in Japan in June 2007, marking the first assessment since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami caused the Fukushima nuclear crisis. The NRA was established in 2012 to oversee stricter regulations. 

The team of 19 nuclear experts also found Japanese authorities need to amend relevant legislation to allow the NRA to conduct more effective inspections. 

"What we found is the system that is regulating or defining the framework for inspection is very complex and very rigid," Philippe Jamet, the head of the mission team, said at a joint press conference held by the team and the NRA.
"It doesn't give enough freedom for the inspectors to react immediately," Jamet said. 

Shunichi Tanaka, the chairman of the NRA, said the Japanese regulatory body will work more closely with power companies to improve its inspection operations. 

"We have to talk to operators more thoroughly to improve the inspection method," Tanaka said. 

The mission team also said the NRA should work to attract more experienced staff and strengthen staff skills through education, training and international cooperation...

 Briefing Notes for 95003 Inspection at Arkansas Nuclear One

2:00 pm EST/1:00 pm CST

January 20, 2015

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Staff Participants:

• Neil O’Keefe, Branch Chief and 95003 Inspection Team Leader
• John Dixon, Assistant Team Leader
• Brian Tindell, Senior Resident Inspector

Purpose 

To provide a current status of performance regulatory oversight and performance improvement efforts to improve safety performance at the Arkansas Nuclear One nuclear power plant.

Background 

The NRC increased regulatory oversight of Entergy’s Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO) plant in the third quarter of 2014. ANO was placed into Column 4, “Multiple/Repetitive Degraded Cornerstone,” of the NRC’s Action Matrix as a result of having two Yellow findings affecting each of the two plants. The NRC’s color coding indicates that Yellow findings have substantial safety significance. These findings were identified as a result of the events surrounding the industrial accident that occurred at the plant on March 31, 2013, which resulted in one fatality and eight injured personnel. One Yellow finding involved performance deficiencies identified from the event associated with dropping a heavy component and causing significant damage to plant equipment. The other Yellow finding involved performance deficiencies associated with inadequate flood protection of safety equipment that was exposed as a result of plant damage from the heavy component drop.

Event Description 

On March 31, 2013, during a planned Unit 1 outage, the licensee was lifting the Unit 1 main generator stator out of the turbine building when an inadequately designed temporary lifting rig failed, causing the 525 ton stator to fall approximately 30 feet into the train bay. The train bay is shared between Unit 1 and Unit 2. The impact caused substantial damage to the Unit 1 side of the turbine building and power distribution systems, and parts of the lift rig impacted the Unit 2 side of the turbine building.

Yellow Finding Associated with the Heavy Component Drop

The temporary lifting rig collapsed because there were incorrect assumptions and errors in the design such that it could not safely complete the intended lift. A test to verify the capability of the lift rig was not performed due to further errors in communication and decision making. These failures were the result of inadequate oversight of the primary contractor and a subcontractor hired to perform the operation. As a result, there was a complete loss of offsite power to Unit 1 for six days, and Unit 2 partially lost offsite power. This increased risk to the plant because alternate means of providing electrical power to key safety-related systems was not available using installed plant equipment in the event the diesels failed. The NRC determined that this constituted a violation of substantial safety significance.

Yellow Finding for Degraded Flood Protection Features

Following the flooding that occurred during the heavy component drop event, the licensee conducted a comprehensive inspection and identified over 100 deficient flood protection features, including unsealed electrical cable conduits, and degraded hatches and floor plug seals in the auxiliary and emergency diesel fuel storage buildings. NRC inspections subsequently identified additional problems, necessitating further reviews. Both Unit 1 and Unit 2 Safety Analysis Reports (SARs) require that the auxiliary building and safety-related pump rooms be watertight.

The NRC concluded that the licensee had failed to design, construct, and maintain the flood protection features in both units in accordance with the approved design requirements. The finding included multiple violation examples and was determined to have substantial safety significance. The primary contributor to the safety significance was due to the potential safety impact of the theoretical maximum rainfall event, which could lead to core damage due to equipment damage from the degraded flood protection features.

NRC Actions

• The safe operation of the units is the NRC’s primary concern. We have three inspectors onsite that are continuously assessing day to day operation, and we are documenting our assessment that continued plant operation is acceptable in quarterly inspection reports.

• ANO is currently receiving one of the highest levels of NRC oversight designed to ensure that the plant continues to operate safely and performance does not further decline. If safety performance declines further, the NRC will promptly identify and address the decline with regulatory actions up to and including shutting the units down.

• Both the NRC and the licensee are in the process of evaluating the nature and extent of performance issues. We have reviewed the results of each of their evaluations and interim actions to avoid further performance decline.

• The NRC will begin a comprehensive inspection on January 25, 2016. The inspection will involve a team of about 25 inspectors who will spend about 3,600 hours on the effort. This inspection will be an independent evaluation of the extent of the performance problems at Arkansas Nuclear One. We will also assess the licensee’s evaluation of their problems and their proposed corrective actions to ensure they lead to timely and sustained performance improvements.

• We expect to issue an inspection report with the findings and assessments of the team in the spring of 2016. We have tentatively scheduled a public exit meeting for April 6, 201

• April 6, 2016, and will also present the results of the NRC’s annual assessment. Victor McCree, the NRC’s Executive Director for Operations, is expected to attend this meeting.

• The NRC will issue a Confirmatory Action Letter that documents commitments made by the licensee to implement the key corrective actions needed to improve safety performance. The NRC will then conduct inspections to verify the completion and effectiveness of those corrective actions as the actions are completed.

• Based on past experience with plants with similar performance problems, we expect it will take ANO 2 to 3 years to complete the actions needed to demonstrate a sustained improvement in safety performance. The NRC will not reduce the level of oversight until ANO has completed those key actions designated in the Confirmatory Action Letter and the NRC inspections confirm that those actions were effective.

ANO Actions

• ANO has been effective in running the units safely and not allowing the recovery efforts to detract from safe plant operation.

• ANO has completed an extensive series of evaluations to identify the causes for declining safety performance, and has developed, prioritized, and scheduled corrective action to address those causes. These evaluations were performed with the help of nuclear industry experts from outside the company to assist in recognizing areas where ANO and Entergy have not been following industry practices.

• ANO has recognized that their top issue affecting performance involves ensuring that the necessary resources are provided to accomplish station programs and processes in a safe and effective manner (for example, vendor/contractor oversight, increasing backlogs, and equipment maintenance). They have added more than 100 workers and have brought in consultants to assist with its performance improvement and recovery effort.

• The NRC will issue a Confirmatory Action Letter that documents commitments made by the licensee to implement the key corrective actions needed to improve safety performance. The NRC will then conduct inspections to verify the completion and effectiveness of those corrective actions as the actions are completed.