If the NRC does cave in to various pressures, resulting in the irresponsible operation of nuclear facilities, what is a reasonable, not one in a million, worst case scenario?

-- Anonymous, December 12, 1998

Answers

Bill, I do not think there is any situation which would result in a deliberate "irresponsible" operation of nuclear facilities. Certainly, the men and women who work at nuclear generating plants are as vitally concerned about safety issues as the rest of us. A lifelong friend of mine worked in a nuclear power plant for over 20 years. Sure, there were lots of "glow in the dark" black humor jokes and such, but nobody is more at risk than they are in the event of an "incident". The extra risk from Year 2000 problems is the potential creation of the need for emergency responses and a higher stress level. Humans are not error-free, nor are mechanical devices - as much as we might like to think otherwise. I couldn't presume to guess what may happen, but there is a comprehensive chart summary of potential scenarios rated by low, moderate and high probabilities in the NERC contingency plan draft at: ftp://www.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/y2k/contingency.pdf

You'll need an Acrobat Reader to access the .pdf file.

The overall idea in risk management is to keep to an absolute minimum the possible circumstances under which stressful crisis decisions need to be made. A controlled shutdown before the 2000 rollover would do that, but the NRC will be attempting to balance other public risks as well.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 1998

One compromise I have heard discussed is running the nukes at 50% power. If they trip they impact the system less and have less heat to dissipate. If they roll properly then they are available to ramp on up to full power.

Jim

-- Anonymous, December 14, 1998

Jim, that sounds like a very common sense proposal. It's always good to be reminded there are fine minds in the industry batting around ideas to come up with the best ways to deal with a possible compromise situation. Thanks for posting this!

-- Anonymous, December 14, 1998

I'm glad to see some common sense. The real problem is not within the nuclear plants or the regulators but in the poorly informed public. Bonnie hit it on the head when she said that the people who work in these plants have the most to fear. As an operator for one of these plants I do wish people could see that it takes a group of highly trained people to safely operate one of these facilities. I can also tell you that the NRC has no trepidations about ceasing operations at a facility should there be any question about safety (millstone, Quad cities, dresden and zion are all primary examples). As far as safety systems, they are designed to fail safe, regardless of the year(not even figured into it)and with backup generating capability. I haven't heard about a power reduction for the y2k issue but the plants are more difficult to control at 50%. they would much prefer 100% or 0%

-- Anonymous, December 15, 1998