Fort Calhoun - Anyone heard anything on this?

[myrobbins7]

Where is the news coverage about this?
Lucas Whitefield Hixson | #Fukushima | @Enformable: Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant Spent Fuel Pool Cooling System Stopped Working For Hours

 

[TennTradition]

A few hours of no flow around the spent fuel is undesirable, but not a huge risk posed by a few hours of mo flow to the reactor itself.

I wonder how many times this happens ... probably more than is reported.
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[SamRebel35]

A few hours of no flow around the spent fuel is undesirable, but not a huge risk posed by a few hours of mo flow to the reactor itself.

I wonder how many times this happens ... probably more than is reported.
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NRC has pretty stiff penalties for not self reporting. They are probably more tenacious than the NCAA in that regard, with good reason.

 

[TennTradition]

NRC has pretty stiff penalties for not self reporting. They are probably more tenacious than the NCAA in that regard, with good reason.

I meant reported on in the press.
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[SamRebel35]

I meant reported on in the press.
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Ahh, gotcha. You're probably right. There are probably way more loggable safety events than are reported by the media in the nuclear industry.

 

[myrobbins7]

Here is a update at the Fort Calhoun plant....Washington's Blog

 

[Weezy]

It's been shut down since April for outage right?

 

[Weezy]

Regardless of what the media is reporting, the NRC has always been a really good regulatory agency.

The NRC said in a statement that the federal agency has a “robust and comprehensive” approach to holding U.S. nuclear power plants to strict safety standards. “The AP article fails to recognize that the NRC’s own inspection and maintenance requirements have led plants to detect and repair, replace or otherwise fix the equipment, systems or other issues that were described in the article and in other instances which were not highlighted. For example, the NRC’s inspections last year at the Fort Calhoun plant in Nebraska showed the plant needed to correct deficiencies in its flood response plan. The NRC increased its oversight of Fort Calhoun while the plant responded, and today the plant is very well positioned to ride out the current extreme Missouri River flooding while keeping the public safe.”

GAO to NRC: Improve Groundwater Monitoring at Nuclear Plants :: POWER Magazine

This goes along with:

Nuclear Energy Institute - Nuclear Energy Institute Criticizes Shoddy AP Reporting on U.S. Nuclear Power Plant Safety

Nuclear Energy Institute Criticizes Shoddy AP Reporting on U.S. Nuclear Power Plant Safety

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Nuclear Energy Institute criticized the Associated Press today for selective, misleading reporting in a series of new articles on U.S. nuclear power plant safety. The coverage has factual errors, fails to cite relevant reports on safety that contradict the reporting, and raises questions about historic operating issues while ignoring more recent evidence of improved performance in areas that it examines.

It also gives short shrift to the considerable amount of time, money and manpower that the nuclear energy industry and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission devote independently to aging management and long-term plant reliability.

The first article in the series focuses on federal safety standards but ignores the industry’s actual safety performance. There has been only one safety-significant “abnormal occurrence” throughout the industry since 2001 and that lone instance came nine years ago, according to annual reports to Congress available on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s website.

While the AP account discusses the 2002 occurrence at an Ohio nuclear energy facility, it fails to note the industry’s more recent safety record and fails to note that, in response to the Davis-Besse reactor vessel head degradation, the industry implemented a materials management initiative to strengthen research efforts and predictive maintenance in the area of materials reliability. The NRC in 2005 levied its largest single fine ever against the utility that operates Davis-Besse.

The NRC defines an abnormal occurrence as an unscheduled incident or event that the NRC deems significant from the standpoint of public health or safety. NRC’s annual reports to Congress for fiscal years 2001-09 (the 2010 report is not yet available) can be found at: NRC: Report to Congress on Abnormal Occurrences (NUREG-0090).

AP references operating issues common to industrial facilities—“Failed cables. Busted seals. Broken nozzles,”—and then states, “[n]ot a single official body in government or industry has studied the overall frequency and potential impact on safety of such breakdowns in recent years.”

This is incorrect. The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, established in 1979...