Leading Stories
Category directly related to NRC
The Tribune, August 18, 2018
A small commercial nuclear reactor that a Utah energy cooperative wants to build in Idaho would be game-changing for energy customers if the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves the project, a high-ranking federal official said this week at a conference.
https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/business/article216961635.html
Energy News, Kathiann M. Kowalski, August 20, 2018
Environmental advocates have jumped another hurdle in their quest to make sure FirstEnergy and its subsidiaries provide enough funding for safe closure of their nuclear power plants.
Utility Dive, Robert Walton, August 21, 2018
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is developing new guidance for how plant operators can comply with cybersecurity requirements, updating an eight-year-old document to reflect a new kind of threat faced by the nation's power sector
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/updated-nrc-cybersecurity-guidance-highlights-printers-copiers-as-hacker-e/530494/
Peter Maloney, Utility Dive, August 10, 2018
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has rejected a petition by Beyond Nuclear and other public interest groups to shut down or take other remedial action for 18 reactors at 14 nuclear plants.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nrc-says-manufacturing-flaws-negligible-plant-shutdowns-not-necessary/529793/
Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, August 9, 2018
Six years after decommissioning USS Enterprise, the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the U.S. Navy is still figuring out how to safely dismantle the ship. The General Accounting Office estimates the cost of taking apart the vessel and sending the reactors to a nuclear waste storage facility at up to $1.5 billion, or about one-eighth the cost of a brand-new aircraft carrier.
Published on August 13, 2018 by Douglas Clark
Daily Energy Insider
https://dailyenergyinsider.com/news/14187-nuclear-energy-plant-digital-upgrades-targeted
Under guidance issued via the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), officials said the nuclear energy industry is preparing for digital upgrades to the safety-related instrumentation and control (I&C) systems.
Officials said the effort, which will involve utilities hosting 11 workshops on how to prepare required documentation, includes replacing analog controls for safety-related support systems such as chiller systems; replacing safety-related analog relays with digital relays; replacing analog controls for emergency diesel generator supporting systems and auxiliary systems such as voltage regulation; and installing safety-related circuit breakers that contain embedded digital devices.
Three years ago the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) formed a working group of industry experts and NRC staff to resolve key technical and regulatory issues and facilitate the implementation of I&C upgrades – noting the NRC and industry worked to produce guidance on how to bring the upgrades to fruition.
Industry directors said the May 31 regulatory issue summary document (RIS) outlines how reactor owners can use qualitative assessments to demonstrate proposed safety-related and non-safety related digital I&C modifications would have a sufficiently low likelihood of failure due to software or other issues.
The training regimen provides examples of what kinds of digital modifications and upgrades the RIS should be applied to, officials said, encouraging immediate use and implementation of the RIS in initiating digital I&C projects across the operating reactor fleet.
Sammy Fretwell, The State, Ausgust 10, 2018
https://www.thestate.com/news/local/environment/article216390230.html
HOPKINS, SC
Pollution tied to infant deaths and cancer in adults has shown up for decades in the groundwater beneath a nuclear fuel factory less than two miles from Michael Daugherty’s house.
But the 41-year-old Daugherty, a lifelong Hopkins resident, never knew much about the Westinghouse plant, except that two of his cousins work there.
Now, in the aftermath of a recent uranium leak at the plant, Daugherty wants to know whether the factory he has driven by for decades is a threat to his community. He’s among multiple Lower Richland residents uneasy about the safety of the Westinghouse facility, an expansive plant that makes nuclear fuel rods for reactors that produce electricity.
“We’ve got well water here and that’s a concern because this stuff is in the ground,’’ he said. “That could contaminate our wells.’’