Con Ed, Nuclear Regulators Criticized for Failing to Prevent Tube Rupture

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Con Ed, Nuclear Regulators Criticized for Failing to Prevent Tube 
Rupture,McGraw-Hill's Inside N.R.C. Reveals  

WASHINGTON, March 31 /PRNewswire/ -- The research division of the 
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has strongly criticized both 
utility Consolidated Edison of New York and the agency's own reactor 
oversight division for faulty analyses that allowed Indian Point-2 to 
continue running until a steam generator tube ruptured Feb. 15. 

The criticisms came to light in an exclusive story by "Inside 
N.R.C.," an industry newsletter published by the McGraw-Hill Energy 
Information Group. The rupture was contained and produced no off-site 
radioactive threat, but such tube ruptures are considered serious 
events that challenge nuclear plants' safety systems. 

"Inside N.R.C." Managing Editor David Stellfox has been investigating 
the accident, probing particularly why the NRC let Indian Point-2 
operate for an extended period without stopping to check the 
integrity of the hundreds of thin-walled heat transfer tubes in the 
steam generators, even though the tubes had started to indicate 
cracks in the most recent examination in 1997. NRC regulators gave 
Con Ed a waiver allowing it to continue running the plant for 10 
months rather than stopping last summer for safety checks. 

In an exclusive story this week, Stellfox reported that experts from 
the NRC Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research found Con Ed's analysis 
to prove the tubes safe for the longer operation "did not make a 
great deal of technical sense." 

Con Ed appeared to argue that because it took 23 years for the first 
crack to show up, the growth rate for more cracks was 23 years. 
"That's not a credible statement," the research office said in a 
report. 

Worse, the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR) bought 
the flawed argument and let Con Ed run the plant to rupture. The unit 
has been forced to stay off-line since the accident at a cost said to 
be $600,000 per day. 

The report, a March 16 memo from the research division to NRR 
Director Sam Collins, pointed to the 1997 crack indications and said, 
"The appearance of a 'first' stress corrosion crack typically 
indicates that an incubation phase has passed and that more cracks 
are likely." 

A Con Ed spokesman said the utility was reviewing the report and 
comment would be "premature." NRR officials said the report raised 
"fair questions" but any conclusions were "premature." Admitted one 
official, "Clearly the staff could have asked better questions." 

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Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	
Director, Technical				Extension 2306 				     	
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