Part 1 of 2 Parts
One of the common themes of this blog is that although the design of nuclear power plants and equipment to handle nuclear materials may be superb, in the end, the people operating the equipment must be capable and conscientious. The problem with commercial nuclear power operations is that the prime directive of a corporation is to make money.
A pair of professors in a prestigious business school wrote an article for a journal in which they said that it was the duty of the officers of a corporation to increase the wealth of the shareholders and if they had an opportunity to do that by breaking the law, they were obligated to break the law. If they were caught later, then the fines resulting from illegal activity should just be included in operating expenses for the corporation. This is very bad aspect for U.S. corporations and may be disastrous for operators of a nuclear power plant.
I have written before about the problems that ultimately shut down the San Onofre nuclear power plant in southern California. When a problem with a steam generator prompted Southern California Edison (SCE), the operators of San Onofre, to purchase new generators from Hitachi Heavy Industries, SCE made some design changes that were criticized by the contractor as problematic. Nonetheless, SCE insisted on the changes and failed to tell the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as was required by regulation.
When difficulties arose in the installation and operation of the new steam generators, the ultimate result was that the plant was permanently closed. Now it is being decommissioned which includes the disposal of the spent nuclear fuel from the reactor cooling pool. The plan is to transfer it to dry casks provided by Holtec, one of the leaders in the dry cask industry.
The transfer of the spent nuclear fuel began early last year but has been halted by the NRC because of violation of regulations. In February of 2018, workers discovered a loose four-inch stainless steel bolt inside on of the canisters they were preparing. An investigation found that Holtec had altered the design of the canister without informing the NRC as they were obligated to do. On July 22 of 2018, workers had problems aligning and centering a canister that was being lowered into the storage vault. Ultimately, the canister was successfully lowered into the vault, but the event was not entered into the “corrective action program” which is intended to let the plant operators learn from their mistakes. On August 3rd of 2018, there was another very serious problem with aligning a canister for insertion into the vault. A fifty-ton waste filled canister held by slings was being lowered into the eighteen-foot deep vault. The canister got stuck on a “shield ring” near the top of the vault and the supporting slings went slack but that fact was not noticed by the workers. The canister sat there without being supported by anything but the shield ring for an hour. SCE should have reported the incident to the NRC immediately on the Friday when the event occurred but did not actual notify the NRC until the following Monday.
Please read Part 2