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EXperts wonder if DB rust is unique to DB
The Toledo Blade
>
> Article published October 31, 2002
>
> Expert wonders if rust unique to Davis-Besse Incident dominates talk
> at global conference
>
> By Michael Woods, Blade Science Editor
>
> WASHINGTON - The corrosion problem which shut down FirstEnergy
> Corp.'s Davis-Besse nuclear plant may be more than an isolated fluke,
> the chairman of the federal government's reactor safety committee
> said yesterday.
>
> "Recent events have shaken my confidence," Dr. George E. Apostolakis
> said of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission system used to assure
> safety at the nation's 103 nuclear power plants.
>
> "I'm really perplexed," he admitted at an international conference on
> nuclear safety research here. "I don't know how this whole system of
> checks could fail.
>
> "Is what happened at Davis-Besse an outlier or an indication of a
> problem with the whole system? I don't know."
>
> Dr. Apostolakis is professor of nuclear engineering at the
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology and chairs the NRC's Advisory
> Committee on Reactor Safeguards. The 11-member panel serves as the
> NRC's technical adviser on nuclear safety.
>
> The Davis-Besse incident dominated sessions at the annual
> NRC-sponsored conference, which attracted hundreds of experts from
> more than a dozen countries.
>
> "To indict the whole risk-analysis process because of Davis-Besse is
> lubricious," snapped Stephen D. Floyd, a senior director of the
> Nuclear Energy Institute, a pro-nuclear industry group based here.
>
> He referred to the leak of corrosive water that went undetected at
> Davis-Besse for years. Workers finally discovered that it ate a
> pineapple-sized rust hole into the reactor pressure vessel head. Only
> a thin stainless steel liner prevented a potentially disastrous
> release of radioactive water from the reactor into the containment
> building, the plant's last line of defense for the public.
>
> Mr. Floyd suggested that the lapses responsible for the rust hole
> were a rare exception in an industry that has grown safer and more
> reliable with the introduction of new safety approaches in the 1990s.
> He cited evidence that nuclear power has an excellent safety record,
> especially when compared to the toll from auto accidents, airplane
> crashes, and other health and safety hazards that society accepts.
>
> Edward McGaffigan, Jr., one of five members of the NRC's governing
> board, defended the agency's actions in overruling a staff
> recommendation calling for an immediate shutdown of Davis-Besse last
> December.
>
> Some NRC staff concluded that the plant was unsafe, due to likely
> coolant leaks, and prepared a shutdown order. Senior staff members,
> however, vetoed it, allowing Davis-Besse to continue to operate until
> a refueling and maintenance shut down in mid-February. The rust hole
> was discovered in March.
>
> Mr. McGaffigan said he endorses the senior staff decision as sound,
> based on the fact that the NRC was not aware at the time that the
> rust hole existed.
>
> In remarks to the conference, David Lochbaum, a nuclear expert with
> the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the veto was typical of NRC's
> inconsistent regulatory policies in dealing with nuclear plant
> operators.
>
> Mr. McGaffigan and Mr. Lochbaum engaged in a lengthy debate as
> experts from Japan, Korea, Russia, and other countries looked on in
> wonderment.
>
> .
--
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and Justice is a chapter of Peace Action.
"First they ignore you; Then they laugh at you; Then they fight you; Then you
win. (Gandhi) "Why walk when you can fly?" (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
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