Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 08:43:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: cabeal <cabeal@efn.org>
To: y2kforum@efn.org
Subject: Nuclear trade group reports no serious problems
THURSDAY
JUNE 17
1999
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WND Exclusive
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PANIC IN THE YEAR ZERO
Nuclear plants race
to meet Y2K deadline
July 1 is cutoff date
for non-compliant facilities
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Editor's note: This the first of a two-part series.
___________
By David Franke
© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON -- Federal nuclear regulators have given America's
nuclear
plants until July 1 to demonstrate they are ready for Y2K.
Some of
them won't make the deadline.
Not to worry, says the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear
trade
group responsible for getting facilities Y2K-ready. NEI says
work not
expected to be completed by July 1 could have an impact on
power
generation, but not on safety. And, it adds, all those problems
will
be fixed well before Jan. 1, 2000.
NEI officials explained their progress this week to senior
managers
and staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal
agency
responsible for the safe operation of nuclear facilities.
WorldNetDaily was the only press to cover the meeting -- an
indication
of the print media's lack of concern about nuclear safety issues
related to Y2K.
Jim Davis, director of operations at the Nuclear Energy Institute,
was
the group's chief spokesman at the meeting. He was accompanied
by
Ralph Beedle, NEI's senior vice president and chief nuclear
officer.
"Safety is our number one consideration," Davis said,
"and we're
satisfied we can shut down any plant safely if necessary."
Having
taken care of the safety issue, he added, "the broader
issue is our
continued ability to generate power, and we've spent more time
on
this."
Davis explained that the July 1 reports will cover the Y2K-readiness
of "critical systems -- those needed for safety and power
generation
-- as well as important systems which, while not critical,
impact the
facility as a whole." Payroll systems, for example, are
very important
for business continuity but do not have a direct impact on
safety or
power generation.
"The industry has looked at approximately 200,000 items,"
Davis
reported, "and of these, about 10,000 -- or 5 percent
-- have required
some sort of remediation. We've been collecting data on how
many
plants have 'open items' that won't be ready. We will follow
up on
those open items, getting a monthly report from those facilities,
and
we plan to make this list public on our website."
In March 1999, NEI had identified 62 "open items"
at 20 facilities. He
wouldn't speculate on how many of those are now remediated,
but did
give some examples of the kinds of problems still to be fixed.
"Four plants have had problems with feedwater regulation,"
Davis said.
"This is not critical," he explained, but you have
to close down the
plant for five days to fix the problem, "and it's appropriate
to do
this in the fall rather than during the peak summer season.
Also, in
each case the facility has experience doing this. Three of
the four
have already scheduled their maintenance outage."
(In the course of operating a nuclear reactor, some water is
always
being removed for cleanup and replaced with new water. "Feedwater
regulation" refers to this computer control function.)
Some facilities are also reporting problems with their plant
process
computers. "Plants work perfectly well without process
computers,"
Beedle added in, "but I still have to comply with regulations
and
report that kind of problem."
The plant process computer gives plant operators a comprehensive
color-coded "read" on the plant. It monitors the
major plant systems
and their functions. If there's an irregularity in one of the
systems,
that information is fed to the computer, and if that anomaly
continues, an alarm is triggered.
"What can you say about critical systems?" asked
Frank Miraglia, a
senior official at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "Will
all of
those be ready by July 1?"
"Are we finding anything that would affect our ability
to shut down a
plant safely? No," responded Beedle. "Are we finding
anything that
would affect power continuity? Yes."
"Safety is not the issue at this point," Davis added.
"Everything we
are addressing has to do with power continuity."
"My projection," Davis continued, "is that we're
going to find a short
list of problems on July 1. Since most plants will have at
least one
or two ways to handle those problems, we'll find no issues
that will
affect safety or require shutdown."
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Electric
Institute
plan to compile and evaluate the facility reports as they arrive,
and
then issue a report to the public somewhere between July 7
and July
12.
___________
Tomorrow: The nuclear contingency plans.
___________
David Franke may be reached by e-mail.
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