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U.S. NRC Cites Y2K Nuclear Plant Worries -Markey
Thursday May 13 12:52 AM ET
U.S. NRC Cites Y2K Nuclear Plant Worries -Markey
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Problems with emergency backup
generators at the Pilgrim nuclear station in Massachusetts are
among the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's safety concerns for
the Year 2000 rollover, Rep. Edward Markey said Wednesday.
Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat and a consistent critic of the
NRC's safety programs, said a letter from NRC Chairman Shirley
Ann Jackson detailed some lingering concerns the agency has
expressed ahead of Jan. 1, 2000.
Among those concerns were repeated problems with emergency
backup diesel generators at the 670-megawatt Pilgrim nuclear
plant in Plymouth, Mass. The units are required to keep the facility
safe in the event of Y2K blackouts in the electrical grid, Markey
said.
The NRC said the plant's owner was working to solve the problem
by adjusting the temperature limit for the generators, improving air
flows and increasing the amount of diesel fuel it keeps on hand. On
May 3, the NRC approved the transfer of the operating license for
the 27-year-old Pilgrim plant from BEC Energy's unit, Boston
Edison Co. (NYSE:BSE - news), to Entergy Nuclear, a non-
regulated subsidiary of New Orleans-based Entergy Corp.
(NYSE:ETR - news). The Entergy unit bought the Pilgrim plant for
$80 million in 1998. In the 1980s, Boston Edison spent about $300
million to fix problems at the Pilgrim plant, after it was heavily fined
by the NRC.
While the NRC's letter said its staff had no knowledge of any
general power-plant safety-system problems directly linked to Y2K,
there were some difficulties experienced with related personal-
access controls and plant-monitoring systems.
Markey, along with some environmental groups, fears that the
nation's 103 operating nuclear power plants will experience safety
lapses due to the Year 2000 or Y2K computer bug.
Some computers are programmed to read only the last two digits
of a given year. When the Year 2000 rollover occurs, it is feared
that systems reading the ``00'' of 2000 will interpret the date as
``1900'' instead, causing widespread system malfunction.
The NRC chairman's letter was in response to a March request
from Markey seeking information on the agency's Y2K oversight.
In the letter, the NRC said it believes there will be no need to shut
down any nuclear reactors because of Y2K concerns, adding it
thinks all plants will be Y2K ready by July 1, 1999.
``I commend the NRC for its increased attention to making sure
nuclear plants will not be waylaid by the Y2K bug, Nonetheless, I
continue to believe that the safe operation of nuclear plants
requires more detailed oversight and aggressive action,'' Markey
said in a statement.
Late in April, the North American Electric Reliability Council said
power companies would be ready for the 2000 rollover, and would
have most problems fixed by June 30. The council, known as the
NERC, is an umbrella group of U.S. and Canadian utility and power
industry officials responsible for ensuring power is always available
to anyone hooked up to the grid.
In a report to the government, the NERC said that by late March,
the power industry had completed more than 75 percent of the
required testing and remediation of its systems, up from 44 percent
last November.
Fewer than 3 percent of all components failed Y2K testing, the
NERC said. In most cases, the errors, mostly incorrect dates in
logs, would not have caused the lights to go out -- one of the great
fears as the world braces for the year 2000.
Sandy Perle
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205
"The object of opening the mind, as of opening
the mouth, is to close it again on something solid"
- G. K. Chesterton -
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