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The highest-level staff official at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, aside from the presidentially appointed commission members themselves, arrived in Vermont Monday to head up a special investigation into why serious problems continually plague Vermont Yankee nuclear plant's cooling towers. William Borchardt, executive director of the NRC, held a meeting with NRC staff in Vermont late Monday afternoon, and will hold a briefing for state officials and representatives of the state's congressional delegation today.

The most recent shutdown of a nuclear reactor at Dominion Virginia Power's North Anna Power Station also involved the accidental discharge of tens of thousands of gallons of cooling water into Lake Anna. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday's shutdown of Unit 2, caused by an electrical malfunction, also prompted the discharge of what was originally thought to be up to 59,500 gallons of cooling water into the Louisa County lake. The NRC said Dominion Virginia Power told the agency that it later appeared that the amount of discharge was actually closer to 35,000 gallons. Dominion Virginia Power also told the NRC that the lake water was tested after the discharge and was found to be within government-approved limits.

The most recent shutdown of a nuclear reactor at Dominion Virginia Power's North Anna Power Station also involved the accidental discharge of tens of thousands of gallons of cooling water into Lake Anna. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday's shutdown of Unit 2, caused by an electrical malfunction, also prompted the discharge of what was originally thought to be up to 59,500 gallons of cooling water into the Louisa County lake. The NRC said Dominion Virginia Power told the agency that it later appeared that the amount of discharge was actually closer to 35,000 gallons. Dominion Virginia Power also told the NRC that the lake water was tested after the discharge and was found to be within government-approved limits.

Federal investigators are examining what caused an electrical fault that shut down a nuclear power reactor at Indian Point 2 Monday night. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said the plant went to "hot shutdown" at 10:42 p.m. Monday, which means the reactor coolant system remains heated and pressurized, allowing the plant to be returned to service quickly. "There's no danger posed to the public or the workers due to the shutdown," Sheehan said Tuesday. "The operators followed the appropriate procedures and shut it down, but there's still work to be done as far as what caused the shutdown and the complications that occurred." NRC investigators visited the site late Monday night.

Federal investigators are examining what caused an electrical fault that shut down a nuclear power reactor at Indian Point 2 Monday night. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said the plant went to "hot shutdown" at 10:42 p.m. Monday, which means the reactor coolant system remains heated and pressurized, allowing the plant to be returned to service quickly. "There's no danger posed to the public or the workers due to the shutdown," Sheehan said Tuesday. "The operators followed the appropriate procedures and shut it down, but there's still work to be done as far as what caused the shutdown and the complications that occurred." NRC investigators visited the site late Monday night.

Following a 3 1/2-year review of the license renewal application for the Oyster Creek nuclear generating station in Lacey, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Wednesday may, for all intents and purposes, decide whether to allow the plant to operate for another 20 years. To head off any chance the NRC will give Oyster Creek the green light next week, the state Department of Environmental Protection should seek a federal injunction to prevent a vote until all of the recommendations made by the NRC licensing board for further analysis of the plant's drywell - the steel barrier surrounding the reactor that is designed to contain radiation in the event of an accident - are heeded.

Notice of Availability and Solicitation of Public Comments on Documents Under Consideration To Establish the Technical Basis for New Performance-Based Emergency Core Cooling System Requirements AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice of availability and request for public comment. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is announcing the availability of Research Information Letter (RIL) 0801, ``Technical Basis for Revision of Embrittlement Criteria in 10 CFR 50.46'' and NUREG/CR-6967, ``Cladding Embrittlement During Postulated Loss-of- Coolant Accidents,'' and is seeking public comment on these documents. The NRC is soliciting comment on the subject documents to confirm that a sufficient technical basis exists to proceed with new performance- based regulations on emergency core cooling system (ECCS) acceptance criteria, and to identify issues that may arise with respect to experimental data development or regulatory costs or impacts of new requirements.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has ruled that more work needs to be done on an environmental assessment for a produce irradiator that's proposed for a location near Honolulu International Airport. Advertisement The commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board issued a ruling last week saying the NRC staff needs to consider alternate technology and sites in producing the assessment. The board's decision said it expects the staff to give meaningful consideration to transportation accidents in preparing a final environmental assessment. The ruling came after almost three years of discussion at the NRC, which has been considering Pa'ina Hawaii LLC's request to build an irradiator that would use up to a million curries of cobalt-60 to treat local fruits such as papayas, vegetables and other items so they can be shipped to the Mainland insect-free.

Shortly after I arrived at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)'s headquarters in Washington, D.C., at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, March 28, 1979, I got a call from the commission's emergency center in Bethesda, Maryland. The number two reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania had declared a general emergency. There weren't supposed to be serious accidents at nuclear power plants and having to deal with one led to some, let us say, out-of-the-ordinary, and even absurd, behavior. NRC Chairman Joe Hendrie was with his daughter, who was undergoing dental surgery. As the senior commissioner on duty, I took over the first day and arranged for the Bethesda staff to brief the commissioners--Peter Bradford, Richard Kennedy, and myself. The other commissioner, John Ahearne, had gone off on his own to Bethesda. The lawyers said we had to keep a transcript, as the meeting was not public. I thought this would interfere with serious discussion, so I opened the door and pronounced the meeting public.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will consider the issues raised in a petition for rulemaking (PRM) submitted by Bob Christie (petitioner) in the NRC's rulemaking process. The petition was dated May 2, 2002, and was docketed as PRM-50-77. The petitioner requested that the NRC amend its regulations at 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix A, to eliminate the requirement for assuming a loss-of-offsite power (LOOP) coincident with postulated accidents. The petitioner believes this requirement is detrimental to safety because it results in fast start time requirements for emergency diesel generators (EDG) and because it requires operator training to focus on unrealistic events.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has sent a team of specialists to review the circumstances surrounding the identification of air trapped in a safety system at the Beaver Valley Unit 1 nuclear power plant in Shippingport, Pa. The team began its work at the site today. There are two nuclear reactors at Beaver Valley, both operated by FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC). On Sept. 23, FENOC detected air (called a "void") in the suction lines for both trains of the low-head safety-injection system (LHSI) at Beaver Valley Unit 1. (The low-head safety-injection system is one of the systems that supply water to the reactor in the event of an accident at the plant. It is also used to circulate cooling water following an accident.) At the time, FENOC determined that the system would have operated as designed. On Oct. 4 and 5, the company effectively eliminated the void by venting both loops of the system and filled the system with water. The company also verified the same conditions did not exist at Beaver Valley Unit 2.

Good morning and thank you for taking a few minutes from your busy schedules to be here today. The thoughts that I want to share with you today will be brief, but I assure you they are deeply felt, and I appreciate your interest in them. Like many other organizations, we memorialize our successes and hold forth our highest aspirations as reminders of what we are working toward - first among these being our mission and our values. However, we should also be ready to memorialize a weakness or a stumble as a reminder of the ever-present need to avoid the subtle complacency that may result from a long history of success. Today we dedicate such a memorial - one that I hope will continue to remind both our staff and our licensees not only of the vulnerability of technology to degradation, but also the vulnerability of people to complacency. Since the beginning of the

Thirty years after the nation's worst nuclear power plant accident, the partial meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island, nuclear is back in the news. Polls show increased public support, and advocates tout its relatively clean, homegrown power potential. Georgia is at the forefront of the industry's hopes, with Southern Co.'s Plant Vogtle near Augusta scheduled to put the first of two planned new reactors into service in 2016.

Thirty years after the nation's worst nuclear power plant accident, the partial meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island, nuclear is back in the news. Polls show increased public support, and advocates tout its relatively clean, homegrown power potential. Georgia is at the forefront of the industry's hopes, with Southern Co.'s Plant Vogtle near Augusta scheduled to put the first of two planned new reactors into service in 2016.

"Much like Captain Renault in Casablanca, the White House is suddenly shocked, shocked to find that oil rigs can explode, destroying ecosystems and livelihoods. The Obama administration has backed away from its offshore oil expansion policy in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe as the long-term environmental and economical consequences unfold in the Gulf States. Headlines are clamoring for the criminal investigations of BP, TransOcean, Halliburton and ultimately, the federal regulator, Mineral Management Services (MMS). Rather paradoxically, President Obama is using the oil spill to call for more nuclear power. Yet, with the exception of a handful of insightful political cartoonists, the obvious parallel between the regulatory delinquency of MMS and that of its nuclear equivalent - the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) - and the potential for an equally catastrophic accident in the nuclear sector, has not been drawn. As with the MMS debacle, the NRC is gambling with inevitable disaster with the same spin of the wheel of misfortune and with potentially even higher stakes. "

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission released a report that concludes that there are no significant conditions that would affect safety and the operation of Oyster Creek Generating Station's drywell liner until its next examination in four years. The drywell shell is an important mechanism of the nuclear power plant's cooling system. The steel container surrounds the reactor and is supposed to contain radioactivity in the event of a nuclear accident. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said Monday that a preliminary notification report issued on the agency's inspection has shown that the crucial drywell liner is operational.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is conducting a special inspection at the San Onofre nuclear plant in response to problems discovered with several electrical connections affecting plant safety systems. The plant, located near San Clemente, Ca., is operated by Southern California Edison Co. Following an incident in which maintenance personnel discovered a loose electrical connection on an emergency battery that rendered it inoperable, NRC inspectors identified similar problems that had occurred since 2005. These problems with electrical connections had affected the operability of an emergency diesel generator and batteries that are used to supply power during some accident conditions.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region III office in Lisle, Ill., activated its Incident Response Center today to monitor an unusual event declared at the Monticello Nuclear Power Plant. The plant, operated by Xcel Energy, is located in Monticello, Minn. The unusual event was declared at 10:30 a.m. when a contractor struck a power line, which resulted in a loss of power to non-safety equipment. The contractor was taken to an area hospital and pronounced dead, according to local authorities. The loss of power affected equipment necessary to provide cooling water to the reactor. Around 11:30 a.m. the plant restored the equipment necessary to provide cooling water support to the reactor in a shutdown condition.

ERWIN - As Nuclear Fuel Services proceeds with plans to improve safety, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has released previously withheld documents detailing incidents at the plant over a three-year period. Earlier this month, the NRC released 58 event notification reports between 2004 and 2007. Twenty-four of the documents pertain to NFS, and 34 were associated with BWXT in Lynchburg, Va.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region III office in Lisle, Illinois, has activated its Incident Response Center to monitor an Unusual Event declared at the Duane Arnold Nuclear Plan triggered by the loss of three major sources of telecommunications at the station due to rising floodwaters. The plant, operated by FPL Energy, is located in Palo, Iowa. The plant is in a stable condition at 100 percent power. There have been no unplanned radioactive releases. State and local officials have been informed.

Fire events provide a unique source of historical data, but only when the lessons learned provide advancements in safety. When these lessons are learned but not preserved, they are often repeated. The PURPOSE of this brochure and DVD is to preserve the history and impact of the fire at the Browns Ferry Nuclear (BFN) Power Plant on regulations and to educate future generations of safety professionals. Fire protection in commercial nuclear power plants (NPPs) has been a longstanding challenge since operations began. In the 1960s and 1970s, when most of today's nuclear power reactors were being constructed, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC's) predecessor-the Atomic Energy Commission-began adopting rules and regulations to ensure fire safety. The first adopted fire protection regulation was General Design Criterion (GDC) 3, "Fire Protection," as Appendix A of 10 CFR Part 50 in February 1971. The GDC 3, in part, states that:

Dominion Virginia Power shut down one of its two nuclear reactors at its North Anna power station Friday because of what the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission later deemed "an unusual event." Unit 1 remained shut down this morning. Unit 2 at North Anna, about 45 miles northwest of Richmond along Lake Anna in Louisa County, continued to operate at full power today. The Richmond-based utility notified the NRC one hour after the incident occurred Friday and later told the federal agency it had also notified the Virginia Department of Emergency Management. There was no indication whether local authorities in Louisa or any other surrounding counties had been notified by the utility.

Dominion Virginia Power shut down one of its two nuclear reactors at its North Anna power station Friday because of what the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission later deemed "an unusual event." Unit 1 remained shut down this morning. Unit 2 at North Anna, about 45 miles northwest of Richmond along Lake Anna in Louisa County, continued to operate at full power today. The Richmond-based utility notified the NRC one hour after the incident occurred Friday and later told the federal agency it had also notified the Virginia Department of Emergency Management. There was no indication whether local authorities in Louisa or any other surrounding counties had been notified by the utility.

It could take more than a month for federal regulators to decide whether to take action against Babcock & Wilcox for possible violations, officials said Friday. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a conference with B&W officials to discuss four "apparent violations" in the company's performance in ensuring safety and reporting emergencies. The issues relate to an event in July when uranium was found in a location without safety checks at B&W's Mt. Athos site in Campbell County. NRC officials voiced several concerns and B&W explained what happened in July, and how they have adjusted their procedures since then.

It could take more than a month for federal regulators to decide whether to take action against Babcock & Wilcox for possible violations, officials said Friday. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a conference with B&W officials to discuss four "apparent violations" in the company's performance in ensuring safety and reporting emergencies. The issues relate to an event in July when uranium was found in a location without safety checks at B&W's Mt. Athos site in Campbell County. NRC officials voiced several concerns and B&W explained what happened in July, and how they have adjusted their procedures since then.