I have just received a copy of the Nov.6th NRC Audit on Seabrook. Can you tell me if, in your mind, this report is good news. It can be found at http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/Y2K/Audit/Y2K50443.html

-- Anonymous, November 26, 1998

Answers

One very interesting thing about this audit is the number of systems that need to be fixed, and what the effect is if they're not. I posted a note to this effect to comp.software.year-2000, I'll repeat it here:

How can Y2K cause a generating plant to fail?

This report answers that, quite nicely. After their internal inventory and assessment phases, they found the following:

There were 12 "items" that contributed to plant safety, 7 software, 5 embedded or hardware. 7 of these items (no breakdown available for HW/SW) were okay, 4 needed to be fixed, and one needed to be replaced.

There were 13 items that could cause the entire plant to trip, 3 SW, 10 HW. All 13 need to be fixed.

There were five items that could cause a reduction in plant effeciency, 1 SW, 4 HW. All five need to be fixed.

There were 159 items that were related to regulatory requirements, 101 SW, 58 HW. 72 are okay, 72 need to be fixed, 11 need to be replaced, and 4 will be eliminated.

There were 617 business critical items found, 319 SW, 298 HW. 322 are okay, 142 need to be fixed, 111 need to be replaced, and 42 are going to be eliminated.

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I think it's safe to say that nuclear plants are not immune to HW or SW problems WRT Y2K.

Jon

-- Anonymous, November 26, 1998

Although I have a limited understanding of some of the controlling specs of the indicated critical systems, it is refreshing for once, to see what the electrical utilities are having to deal with. Hopefully those viewing this site with a knowledge of the nuclear industry can offer observations as to the difficulty of correcting noted problems.

May Rick will be kind enough to post a direct link to all NRC nuclear reports on his site. My only observation, besides that fact they are the remediation phase when many plants are not, is the relatively low number of systems that will need to be replaced, 156 (or 30%) of non-compliant systems. The remaining 70% are to be "fixed" or retired.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 1998