Pictures—Ten Oldest U.S. Nuclear Plants: Post-Japan Risks

Nine Mile Point Unit 1, New York, November 1969

Photograph courtesy Constellation Energy via PRNewsFoto

Constellation Energy's Nine Mile Point Unit 1, on the southeastern shore of Lake Ontario near Oswego, New York, is the second-longest-operating nuclear station in the United States; it opened in 1969, the same year as Oyster Creek, and shares the same design.

The main "beyond design basis” vulnerabilities that inspectors identified at Nine Mile Point in their post-Japan review had to do with the seismicity of fire suppression systems, and flood detection and building drain systems. Similar issues were raised in the Oyster Creek inspection; neither the fire-fighting system nor the earthen dam that is the downstream wall of the fire bond at the New Jersey facility are built to withstand earthquakes, the inspectors noted.

Despite their similarities, Oyster Creek and Nine Mile Point face different futures. Exelon announced late last year that it planned to close Oyster Creek in 2019, a decade earlier than it had planned, in a deal with New Jersey regulators—who had wanted the company to install costly cooling towers there. But Nine Mile Point was relicensed in 2006, and is set to operate through 2029.

Even though the United States hasn't added a new nuclear power plant in decades, the NRC task force noted "there likely will be more than 100 nuclear power plants operating throughout the United States for decades to come."

Although nuclear power provides only 20 percent of U.S. electricity, the nation's power use is so great that the nearly 799 billion kilowatt-hours produced annually from its fleet is more than the generation of all the nuclear plants in France and Japan, combined.

(Related: "Pictures--Top Ten Nuclear Nations' Quake Hazard”)

Published July 19, 2011

R.E. Ginna, New York, December 1969

Photograph courtesy Entergy/NRC

At R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant, on the shores of Lake Ontario 20 miles northeast of Rochester, New York, the inspectors noted a set of vulnerabilities identified by licensee Constellation Energy: much of the emergency equipment and other infrastructure was not protected against earthquake risk.

"The house heating steam lines located in the screenhouse are not seismic and their failure would create a vulnerability for safety related equipment operation," the inspectors said. "Diesel-driven and motor-driven fire pumps are not seismic and the loss of these pumps would make all suppression systems and hose reels in the plant unavailable. Natural gas piping to the house heating boiler located in the screenhouse is not seismic and the piping failure could create an additional fire hazard."

Still, the inspectors noted that the plant operator met all the current licensing requirements for protection from fire and flooding.

NRC Commissioner Kristine Svinicki, in questioning the Japan task force Tuesday, noted a jarring dichotomy in its conclusion that plants were safe, coupled with its call for a regulatory overhaul. "It seems on the one hand there's reassurance, and on the other hand, what you say is a clarification, but what I think is a real change to our regulatory framework."

Holahan said that the task force was calling both for change and for greater clarity.

"We're recommending that the commission establish a different line for what is an adequate level of protection," he said. "We would hope that the recommended framework would be more clear than the way historically accidents beyond design basis have been dealt with. For decades, it has been difficult for staff, the commission and industry to deal with situations beyond design basis and they've been dealt with on a case-by-case basis."

Published July 19, 2011

Dresden Units 2 and 3, Illinois, April 1970 and July 1971

Photograph by Emory Kristof, National Geographic

The floor level of Exelon's Dresden Nuclear Power Station, just 20 miles south of Joliet, Illinois, near the Illinois and Kankakee rivers, is 517 feet (158 meters) above sea level—four inches (10 centimeters) higher than the calculated level of a 500-year flood.

Yet, during their April visit to the plant, inspectors cited the probable maximum flood level in the area of 528 feet (161 meters) and noted that the diesel flood pump had never been tested for an emergency in which the flood waters rose that high. "The pump would have to be hoisted into the air using a crane and a chain fall to remain above the flood waters," the inspectors said. "The pump has to be operated and refueled while hanging in the air."

Inspectors noted the strategy was based on the low probability of such a flood, and suggested the plant operator would have a long lead time in the case of rising waters ("The licensee expects as much as 72 hours warning before water level would reach 509 feet," the report says.) That would be enough time to shut down and cool down the plant.

"The inspectors concluded that the procedures were in place and could be used as intended," the report said. "However, the flood pump has never been operated while hoisted into the air."

In his testimony before the NRC, task force member Holahan said that protection of equipment from flood, wind, and seismic activity are examples of standards that the agency needs to make more clear and coherent. "Some plants are very well protected against flooding, and others not so well," simply because it was not an issue for which a holistic standard has been set in the past, Holahan said.

(Related: "Is Armenia's Nuclear Plant The World's Most Dangerous?")

Published July 19, 2011

H.B. Robinson Unit 2, South Carolina, September 1970

Photograph courtesy CPL/NRC

The 41-year-old H.B. Robinson plant, located in Hartsville, South Carolina, was beset by problems last year that contributed to multiple shutdowns, one lasting four months after two electrical system fires. After announcing a change in leadership at the plant last fall, plant operator Progress Energy boosted H.B. Robinson from 67 percent of capacity to full capacity. However, the 2010 incidents at the facility have led regulators to increase oversight of the plant through 2011.

Concerns identified during the post-Japan tsunami inspection at the plant included blocked floor drains, fire-piping deficiencies and possible rust, and the potential for failure of containment vent filters in the event of a hydrogen ignition.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear energy industry trade group, has pointed out that regulators have not raised alarms regarding the items inspectors found on their post-Fukushima visits. "NRC officials have emphasized that issues identified during the recent inspections will not impede the facilities' ability to maintain safety even in the face of extreme events," the NEI said in a recent statement. "This conclusion is based upon exemplary levels of safe operation and the multiple layers of protection that exist at each nuclear energy facility in the country."

NEI noted that plant operators have made immediate enhancements or developed plans to improve safety at nuclear facilities in the wake of the inspections, but added: "The vast majority of the items identified by the industry are enhancements to safety measures already in place."

Published July 19, 2011

Point Beach Unit 1, Wisconsin, November 1970

Photograph courtesy FPL/NRC

Operators at Point Beach in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, identified a number of improvements to make in their emergency procedures regarding availability of spare parts, battery inspections, equipment staging, and missing training records.

Inspectors also noted "A lack of formal agreements with two facilities credited to support the licensee in fire fighting events . . . However, the licensee identified memos containing mutual aid agreements with these facilities, including the facilities fire fighting capabilities." While the inspectors did not identify anything that would jeopardize Point Beach’s operating status, they wrote up a daunting 20-point list of "observations" related to the plant's flood- and fire-readiness, including concerns about fuel supply, availability of off-site resources and review of internal processes.

NextEra, which operates the Point Beach plant, is investing hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade the two reactors there. After being taken offline in March for refueling and equipment replacements, Point Beach Unit 1 restarted this month with a 17-percent increase in power output.

Published July 19, 2011

Palisades, Michigan, December 1971

Photograph from Herald-Palladium/AP

Inspectors at the Palisades facility recited a laundry list of oversights at the Covert, Michigan plant—outdated emergency procedures, missing cell phones at the emergency operations facility, a missing section of hose needed for emergency response. But they did not consider these serious enough to affect the plant's ability to respond in a crisis.

They also noted that a work order to address a problem the NRC identified in 2008—an issue with safety-related floor-drain capacity—remained uncompleted three years later. "After discussion with the licensee, the work order has been returned to planning and is being scheduled for completion," inspectors wrote. A series of failures at the Palisades plant led to a temporary shutdown January 22, an incident noted in an AP report that faulted the NRC for loosening regulations in order to keep plants operating. Earlier that same month, the plant was forced to reduce operating capacity for several days when a cooling-water pump lost power.

In a seven-page response to the AP’s report on older U.S. nuclear plants, the NEI said that plants are subject to a "robust and rigorous" process before their licenses are renewed. "The worthiness of a nuclear plant is not a function of the date it started service," the NEI said. "It is a function of its current status, reflecting all upgrades and safety improvements that have been implemented over the years. No matter when they were initially built, today’s plants are safer than ever before."

Published July 19, 2011

Monticello, Minnesota, March 1971

Photograph by Steve Skjold, Alamy

In an earthquake, the fire protection system would likely suffer key failures at the Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant, about 35 miles northwest of Minneapolis on the Mississippi River, inspectors concluded. The emergency response equipment could not be relied upon to be available even after a so-called "safe shutdown earthquake," the kind of seismic event that the power plant is engineered to withstand.Some emergency response equipment was either missing from the inventory or stored at the wrong location; and of the 377 flood-mitigation components to be inspected, 39 were not accessible because of a refueling outage. The NRC also recommended several improvements to the Monticello plant's onsite and offsite emergency plans.

While none of the issues discovered was deemed "significant" by the NRC, the inspectors seemed to point to the Japan Task Force's conclusion that U.S. nuclear facilities are currently governed by "a patchwork of regulatory requirements and other safety initiatives, all important, but not all given equivalent consideration and treatment by licensees or during NRC technical review and inspection." Earlier this month, the Monticello plant came back online after a brief shutdown for a safety relief valve replacement.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, arguing that the NRC task force has not gone far enough in some of its post-Japan safety recommendations, has developed its own list of recommendations, including ensuring that safety issues at plants are resolved in a timely fashion. The watchdog group also has called for expanded emergency planning areas around plants, and removing spent fuel from overcrowded cooling pools (after five years, the fuel is cool enough to store in dry casks, which UCS recommends.) The NRC task force, in contrast, recommended better monitoring equipment so that in an emergency plant operators would have a better idea of water level, temperature, radiation levels, and other important data.

(Related: Pictures: A Rare Look inside Fukushima Daiichi)

David Lochbaum, UCS director of nuclear safety, says better monitoring capability is important for spent fuel that is less than five years old, but the pools would be safer still with a requirement to move the older spent fuel to dry casks.

Published July 19, 2011

Quad Cities Unit 1, Illinois, April 1972

Photograph courtesy Exelon/NRC

Inspectors recommended mostly "minor enhancements" for the Quad Cities plant along the Mississippi River in Cordova, Illinois. They did note that some flood barriers and penetrations at the plant were not being routinely inspected. More seriously, they determined that the majority of flood mitigation sump pumps, flooding detectors, and the fire protection system were not "seismically qualified." The addition of earthquake protections for nuclear plant components was one of the recommendations highlighted in the NRC's Japan Task Force report.

Lochbaum, of UCS, notes that U.S. nuclear plants were required to vastly increase the amount of fire equipment they had on hand after the September 11 attacks. A collateral benefit is that the equipment is now on hand in the case of a natural disaster, but only if it is stores in a way that it is safe and able to operate in the event of a flood or earthquake. "It was all installed with the suicide aircraft scenario in mind," not natural disasters, Lochbaum said. But Japan's crisis has forced a rethinking. "The operators at Fukushima were left with a lot of equipment they couldn't use because they had no power," Lochbaum says.

(Related: Japan Tsunami: 20 Unforgettable Pictures)

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko indeed called the core damage and uncontrolled radiation releases at Fukushima a "watershed" in nuclear power history. In a speech before Tuesday's hearing, he said he ranked it with the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and the September 11 terrorist attacks as an event that "challenged old truths and upended our understanding of nuclear safety and security."

Published July 19, 2011