The Contingency Plan for the Year 2000 Issue in the Nuclear Industry is online at:

http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/COMMISSION/SECYS/secy1999-134/y2kcplan.pdf

On page 18 is a description of how the contingency planning task force arrived at the "planning scenario" which falls between the two extremes of the range of possibilities they evaluated.

"The task force evaluated a range of possible scenarios. At the lowest end of the spectrum is a situation in which everything goes on as usual during the transition from 1999 to 2000. At the opposite end of the spectrum the task force hypothesized a worst-case scenario involving a widespread telecommunications outage, a complete loss of the North American power grid, and several major incidents at NRC-licensed facilities (e.g. station blackout, loss of ultimate heat sink, loss of feedwater) in conjunction with risk-significant challenges at many other licensed facilities (e.g. loss of offsite power or feedwater transients). The task force agreed on a "planning scenario" that falls somewhere between the two extremes. This planning scenario would encompass events that are beyond our current best estimate of likely consequences, but that would allow the staff to respond to unforeseen possibilities. After careful consideration of the current understanding of Y2K readiness and risk, as described in Section III, the task force established the following planning assumptions:

--Y2K problems will lead to localized electrical grid disturbances and power outages within one or more interconnections. However, there will not be major regional or nationwide electric power outages.

--Local or regional telecommunications outages will occur, but there will not be a complete loss of the public switched network (PSN). Networks associated with Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), major independent telephone companies, and interexchange carriers (IXCs) will remain functional.

--At least two NRC-licensed facilities will be affected directly or indirectly by a Y2K problem that requires an NRC response (e.g. loss of offsite power)

--Y2K problems will affect several nuclear power plants outside of the United States.

--Unforeseen Y2K problems will place a dozen or more nuclear power plant licensees in situations that depart from a license condition or a technical specification.

I would like to remind any readers that the above is clearly specified as NOT being a prediction, but only the scenario upon which the contingency planning guide is based.

-- Anonymous, July 21, 1999

Answers

Unforeseen Y2K problems will place a dozen or more nuclear power plant licensees in situations that depart from a license condition or a technical specification.

An exemplar of dispassionate prose....

-- Anonymous, July 21, 1999

I have a friend who flew gas-turbine powered helicopters in the Army during the Viet Nam era. He said that when things got dicey they would run the exhaust gas temperatures in the red zone in order to maintain the power and performance they needed. I think the above NRC statement is an expectation that some "red zone" operations will be tolerated, as long as it is still under good control. Or at least the "yellow zone" stuff that would require shut down under current policy.

-- Anonymous, July 21, 1999

Whoa.. whoa... wait just a minute!

This was the CONTINGENCY PLANNING TASK FORCE... right? For NUCLEAR power plants? And when this group got together they: "evaluated a range of possible scenarios. At the lowest end of the spectrum is a situation in which everything goes on as usual during the transition"...

Un.. EXCUSE me... if everything goes on as usual, you don't need a contingency plan.

But they considered it - lets say that is Scenario Level 1 - along a range from (lets say) Level 1 to Level 10, and then they "agreed on a "planning scenario" that falls somewhere between the two extremes". They just picked Level 5 and concentrated on that?????

So they aren't even PLANNING contingencies for Levels 6 through 10 because they are...."beyond our current best estimate of likely consequences"???

Compare that with Contingency Planning advice from Ed Yourdon:

The contingency planning group should assume that all systems could fail

Or compare it with the contingency plans recommended by the National Retail Federation Year 2000 Retail Contingency and Business Continuity Planning Survival Beyond the Century Change

On that page see: Failure Scenarios

It looks like the agency advising Wallmart is more concerned with Contingency Plans than the agency overseeing our nuclear power plants.

-- Anonymous, July 22, 1999

Something else to consider:

The NRC Contingency planning task force considered a middle-of-the- road scenario because it was "beyond our current best estimate of likely consequences". Remember this industry's track record for estimates. On June 29th, 1999 in a Washington Post article the NEI said that "about 10 of the 103 reactors are not expected to get a clean bill of health until later this year".

The NRC had been saying that possibly "up to 17" plants would not make the July 1st deadline. [can't find the link to that article].

But only a week or so after these estimates the NRC posted the report showing that not 10, not 17, but 35 plants wouldn't be "ready" until as late as Dec. 15 and 16.

I don't know as I'd want to place my horseracing bets by following their estimates... let alone count on them to assure nuclear reliability and safety.

-- Anonymous, July 22, 1999

Oops. Link to TB2000 thread

-- Anonymous, July 22, 1999