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Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening standards or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.Officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission regularly have decided original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased without peril, according to records and interviews.The result? Rising fears that these accommodations are undermining safety -- and inching the reactors closer to an accident that could harm the public and jeopardize nuclear power's future.

Examples abound. When valves leaked, more leakage was allowed -- up to 20 times the original limit. When cracking caused radioactive leaks in steam generator tubing, an easier test was devised so plants could meet standards.Failed cables. Busted seals. Broken nozzles, clogged screens, cracked concrete, dented containers, corroded metals and rusty underground pipes and thousands of other problems linked to aging were uncovered in AP's yearlong investigation. And many of them could escalate dangers during an accident.

Despite the problems, not a single official body in government or industry has studied the overall frequency and potential impact on safety of such breakdowns in recent years, even as the NRC has extended dozens of reactor licenses.Industry and government officials defend their actions and insist no chances are being taken. But the AP investigation found that with billions of dollars and 19 percent of America's electricity supply at stake, a cozy relationship prevails between industry and the NRC.Records show a recurring pattern: Reactor parts or systems fall out of compliance. Studies are conducted by industry and government, and all agree existing standards are "unnecessarily conservative."

Download: U.S. Nuclear Power after Fukushima | U.S. Nuclear Power after Fukushima -- Summary

The report outlines and explains 23 specific recommendations, listed below.   = Key recommendation that the NRC should make a top priority. Preventing and Mitigating the Effects of Severe Accidents Extend the scope of regulations to include the prevention and mitigation of severe accidents. Require reactor owners to develop and test emergency procedures for situations when no AC or DC power is available for an extended period. Modify emergency planning requirements to ensure that everyone at significant risk from a severe accident--not just the people within the arbitrary 10-mile planning zone--is protected.

Improving the Safety and Security of Spent Fuel The NRC should require plant owners to move spent fuel at reactor sites from storage pools to dry casks when it has cooled enough to do so. The NRC should require reactor owners to improve the security of existing dry cask storage facilities. The NRC should require plant owners to significantly improve emergency procedures and operator training for spent fuel pool accidents Making Existing Reactors Safer The NRC should enforce its fire protection regulations and compel the owners of more than three dozen reactors to comply with regulations they currently violate.

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION [NRC-2011-0147] Receipt of Request for Action

Notice is hereby given that by petition dated March 12, 2011, Thomas Saporito (petitioner) has requested that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) take action to order shutdown of all ``nuclear power reactors in the USA [United States of America] which are known to be located on or near an earthquake fault-line.''

As the basis for this request, the petitioner states that following an 8.9 magnitude earthquake on March 11, 2011, in Fukushima, Japan, one or more nuclear power reactors there sustained significant damage which resulted in the release of radioactive particles into the environment, and that the Japanese authorities ordered a ``General Emergency Evacuation,'' but many Japanese citizens were not able to timely leave the affected area and were subject to radioactive contamination at this time. The petitioner further stated that many of NRC's licensees operate nuclear power reactors on or near earthquake fault lines and could, therefore, be subject to significant earthquake damage and loss- of-coolant accidents similar to that experienced by those in Japan for which an on-going state of emergency continued to unfold.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) “Near-Term Task Force Review of Insights from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Accident” publicly released its 92-page well intentioned near-term review on the implications of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster for US reactors on July 13, 2011.  The federal agency proposes to improve its “patchwork of regulatory requirements” developed “piece by piece over the decades.” Beyond Nuclear remains concerned that many critical reactor safety areas are still dominated by industry “voluntary initiatives” where non-compliance continues to elude federal enforcement and  Capitol Hill pro-nuclear champions announced their resistance to any costly safety improvements

Of most concern, the NRC is still ignoring warnings as did its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission,  in 1972 from their senior safety officer, Dr. Steven Hanuaer to “discourage all further use” in the US of the Fukushima-style General Electric Mark I boiling water reactor. The federal regulators instead issued three more construction permits and eventually 16 more operating licenses in the 1970s for this same dangerous design. There are now 23 Fukushima-style reactors operating in the United States as part of a total of 32 Mark I’s worldwide---counting the smoldering radioactive rubble at Fukushima.   The NRC task force report does not fundamentally address the most critical issue coming out of the Fukushima catastrophe, namely, the design vulnerability of all Mark I containment structures to catastrophic failure during a severe accident

The NRC report further ignores that these same Mark I reactors, like Vermont Yankee and Oyster Creek, are not currently in compliance with their operating licenses that were originally required to have a reliable "leak tight" containment structure. If the NRC were looking for the most significant and meaningful safety upgrade to the US reactors directly impacted by the Fukushima disaster they would require that all Mark I reactor operators restore containment integrity to the original licensed leak tight condition. Or order that they be shut them down, permanently.  All of the Mark I reactors voluntarily installed retrofits to vent all a substandard and undersized containment to save it from rupturing during a severe accident. The same experimental vent was installed at Fukushima in 1991. The same experimental fix failed on three containments buildings to prevent the uncontrolled releases of radioactivity to the air and water that are still occurring now four months after the accident.

If Japan's Madarame's Nuclear Safety Commission is "all about money", the US counterpart, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, seems all about political infighting. It's Chairman Jaczko (Democratic appointee) vs Commissioner Svinicki (Republican appointee), with a former chairman fanning the infighting.

From Politico (8/16/2011): NRC infighting goes nuclear By DARIUS DIXON | 8/16/11 4:20 PM EDT It's war at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko regularly faces the sharp end of Republican spears for his work to shut down the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, but his biggest clash appears not to be with Capitol Hill but with fellow NRC Commissioner Kristine Svinicki.

Jaczko, a Democrat and former aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Svinicki, a Republican, have sparred over everything from serious issues including safety reviews and agency budgets to minor items like foreign travel requests.

The nuclear energy industry will continue to work with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as it considers forthcoming recommendations of an agency task force on new procedures and regulations in light of the accident at Fukushima Daiichi.  We have undertaken significant work in the past 90 days to examine our facilities and take the steps necessary to enhance safety.  We will continue to work with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to understand any potential gaps in safety and fill those gaps. Prompted by the Fukushima accident, the NRC staff has been developing recommendations to enhance safety at America’s reactors. The task force is expected to release its report to the NRC commissioners within the next week. In their interim reports, 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.

These NRC’s inspections complement industry efforts begun within days of the Fukushima Daiichi accident. Each of the nation’s 104 nuclear energy facilities has been subjected to a comprehensive verification of preparedness to maintain safety during a severe event, regardless of the cause. As a result of these self-inspections, facility operators have made immediate enhancements or developed plans to enhance safety. The vast majority of the items identified by the industry are enhancements to safety measures already in place.

The NRC has also made clear that issues identified during its post-Fukushima inspections at each plant do not undermine any facility’s ability to respond to extreme events. 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.   Moreover, in its annual reports to Congress, the NRC has listed only one “abnormal occurrence” over the past decade—an incident nine years ago that did not result in the release of radiation. Over the last 10 years, the NRC has not identified any negative trends in safety at America’s nuclear facilities. In the wake of the tragedy in Japan, Americans are concerned about whether U.S. reactors face the same risks.  The fact is, American nuclear facilities are subject to more regulatory scrutiny and requirements than in any other country.  American nuclear energy facilities are equipped and employees are trained to manage severe events. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the industry has made significant improvements in physical structures and emergency response capabilities.

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95% disagree with “Beyond Nuclear”. Let’s make it 99% by Rod Adams on October 14, 2011 in Antinuclear activist , Politics of Nuclear Energy , Unreliables , Wind energy Share0 One of the more powerful concepts that I studied in college was called “groupthink.” The curriculum developers in the history department at the US Naval Academy thought it was important for people in training to become leaders in the US Navy learn to seek counsel and advice from as broad a range of sources as possible. We were taught how to avoid the kind of bad decision making that can result by surrounding oneself with yes-men or fellow travelers. The case study I remember most was the ill fated Bay of Pigs invasion where virtually the entire Kennedy Administration cabinet thought that it would be a cakewalk . If Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by journalistic integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of water above the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where they’re supposed to be. Aside: Don’t we live in an amazing world? I just typed “Bay of Pigs groupthink” into my browser search box and instantly hit on exactly the link I needed to support the statement above. It even cites the book we used when I was a plebe in 1977, more than 33 years ago. End Aside. Not everyone, however, has the benefit of early leadership lessons about the danger of believing that a small group of likeminded people can provide actionable advice. Some of the people who are most likely to be victims of groupthink are those who adamantly oppose the continued safe operation of emission-free nuclear power plants. The writers who exclusively quote members of that tiny community have also fallen into the groupthink trap.   On October 8, 2011, the Berkeley Patch, a New Jersey based journal that regularly posts negative stories about Oyster Creek, featured an article titled Petitioners to NRC: Shut Down All Fukushima-Like Nuclear Plants . Here is a snapshot of the masthead, the headline and the lede. The article is a diatribe that quotes people on the short list of frequently quoted antinuclear activists including Paul Gunter, Michael Mariotte, Kevin Kamps, Deb Katz and Dale Bridenbaugh. The author faithfully reproduces some of their best attempts to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt using untruths about the actual events at Fukushima. For example, the article uses the following example of how antinuclear activists are still trying to spread the myth that the used fuel pools at Fukushima caught fire. Oyster Creek – the oldest nuclear plant in the United States – has generated over 700 tons of high-level radioactive waste, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuc

95% disagree with “Beyond Nuclear”. Let’s make it 99% by Rod Adams on October 14, 2011 in Antinuclear activist, Politics of Nuclear Energy, Unreliables, Wind energy Share0 One of the more powerful concepts that I studied in college was called “groupthink.” The curriculum developers in the history department at the US Naval Academy thought it was important for people in training to become leaders in the US Navy learn to seek counsel and advice from as broad a range of sources as possible. We were taught how to avoid the kind of bad decision making that can result by surrounding oneself with yes-men or fellow travelers. The case study I remember most was the ill fated Bay of Pigs invasion where virtually the entire Kennedy Administration cabinet thought that it would be a cakewalk. If Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by journalistic integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of water above the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where they’re supposed to be.Aside: Don’t we live in an amazing world? I just typed “Bay of Pigs groupthink” into my browser search box and instantly hit on exactly the link I needed to support the statement above. It even cites the book we used when I was a plebe in 1977, more than 33 years ago. End Aside. Not everyone, however, has the benefit of early leadership lessons about the danger of believing that a small group of likeminded people can provide actionable advice. Some of the people who are most likely to be victims of groupthink are those who adamantly oppose the continued safe operation of emission-free nuclear power plants. The writers who exclusively quote members of that tiny community have also fallen into the groupthink trap.  On October 8, 2011, the Berkeley Patch, a New Jersey based journal that regularly posts negative stories about Oyster Creek, featured an article titled Petitioners to NRC: Shut Down All Fukushima-Like Nuclear Plants . Here is a snapshot of the masthead, the headline and the lede. The article is a diatribe that quotes people on the short list of frequently quoted antinuclear activists including Paul Gunter, Michael Mariotte, Kevin Kamps, Deb Katz and Dale Bridenbaugh. The author faithfully reproduces some of their best attempts to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt using untruths about the actual events at Fukushima. For example, the article uses the following example of how antinuclear activists are still trying to spread the myth that the used fuel pools at Fukushima caught fire. Oyster Creek – the oldest nuclear plant in the United States – has generated over 700 tons of high-level radioactive waste, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear said. “Granted that some of that has been moved into dry cast storage, but the pool remains full to its capacity,” Kamps said. “And this was a re-rack capacity. Much later in terms of quantity of high level radioactive waste than it was originally designed for.” This represents 125 million curies of radioactive cesium-137 and the NRC has reported that up to 100 percent of the hazardous material could be released from a pool fire, Kamps said. “I would like to point out that Fukushima Daiichi units one, two, three and four combined in terms of the inventory of high level radioactive waste in their storage pools does not match some of these reactors I mentioned in terms of how much waste is in these pools,” Kamps said. “So the risks are greater here for boil downs and the consequences of a radioactive fire in these pools.” Fortunately, the people who are not a part of the antinuclear community are finally beginning to recognize their own strength and to realize that they do not have to remain silent while the lies are being spread. Here is how a knowledgable commenter responded to the above segment of the article: If Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by journalistic integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of water above the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where they’re supposed to be.

On October 8, 2011, the Berkeley Patch, a New Jersey based journal that regularly posts negative stories about Oyster Creek, featured an article titled Petitioners to NRC: Shut Down All Fukushima-Like Nuclear Plants. Here is a snapshot of the masthead, the headline and the lede. The article is a diatribe that quotes people on the short list of frequently quoted antinuclear activists including Paul Gunter, Michael Mariotte, Kevin Kamps, Deb Katz and Dale Bridenbaugh. The author faithfully reproduces some of their best attempts to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt using untruths about the actual events at Fukushima. For example, the article uses the following example of how antinuclear activists are still trying to spread the myth that the used fuel pools at Fukushima caught fire. Oyster Creek – the oldest nuclear plant in the United States – has generated over 700 tons of high-level radioactive waste, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear said. “Granted that some of that has been moved into dry cast storage, but the pool remains full to its capacity,” Kamps said. “And this was a re-rack capacity. Much later in terms of quantity of high level radioactive waste than it was originally designed for.” This represents 125 million curies of radioactive cesium-137 and the NRC has reported that up to 100 percent of the hazardous material could be released from a pool fire, Kamps said. “I would like to point out that Fukushima Daiichi units one, two, three and four combined in terms of the inventory of high level radioactive waste in their storage pools does not match some of these reactors I mentioned in terms of how much waste is in these pools,” Kamps said. “So the risks are greater here for boil downs and the consequences of a radioactive fire in these pools.”

The world's largest nuclear energy producer, the United States, Tuesday aired its first detailed public examination of whether stronger safety standards are needed in light of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.Although the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) task force concluded that the sequence of events that caused Japan's crisis was unlikely to recur in the United States, the panel has urged a new focus on preparing for the unexpected.(Related: "How is Japan's Nuclear Disaster Different?)Especially at issue is how to deal with "beyond design-basis" risks, events considered too unlikely to be factored in when the plants were being designed. The U.S. task force recommended that a framework of "extended design-basis" requirements be established for the 104 reactors in the United States. This is especially important, task force member Gary Holahan said, in light of the fact that "many of the older plants might have less robust seismic, flooding, and other features."

Part of the concept of the framework is for the NRC to articulate” expected safety requirements, and to test all plants, no matter their age or design, against that same standard, said Holahan, deputy director of NRC's office of new reactors.The post-Fukushima inspection reports that NRC ordered for all U.S. nuclear power plants provide a window into risks that the task force says the agency should address.

For instance, in their April visit to the oldest U.S. nuclear power plant, Exelon's Oyster Creek, near Toms River, New Jersey, close to the shore, the inspectors noted that if power were lost, emergency venting procedures "could result in hydrogen accumulation in the reactor building." Such a build-up is believed to have caused the explosions at Fukushima Daiichi, which, like Oyster Creek, had boiling water reactors with Mark 1 containment systems. Among the NRC task force's recommendations is that reliable hardened vent designs be required in such reactors. (Fukushima and most of the 31 U.S. boiling water reactors have hardened vent designs; the task force is urging steps to make them more reliable.)Here's a look at some of the other post-Fukushima concerns raised by inspectors at the ten oldest U.S. nuclear power plants.

Lucas W Hixson may have uncovered a major abuse of the public trust by the NRC. In late March 2011 the NRC issued a directive that allowed the nuclear industry lobbyist group NEI to supply radiation monitoring data to the NRC who would then forward it to the EPA. March 24th the NRC discussed handing over radiation monitoring to nuclear industry lobbyists, April 14th RadNet was shut down and went back to routine monitoring schedules. This meant no ongoing food,water and air filter testing. Only the radiation level monitors were left operating. The EPA claimed that levels were going down as the reason for shutting down the expanded monitoring, but places like Idaho did not have the decreases seen at other sites.

The NRC directive put commercial nuclear power plant owners in charge of voluntarily providing the public with radiation monitoring data but it would be run through their nuclear industry lobbyists before it would then be provided to the NRC. Raw data was not provided directly to the NRC. Considering the massive US nuclear industry offensive to flood the media with propaganda downplaying the Fukushima nuclear disaster, they are hardly a reliable source to tell the public what the radiation levels are.

RadNet itself had many problems, stations didn’t work, some were not calibrated before the disaster. Even more disturbing is that the EPA does not even handle their own radiation monitoring network. The important function falls to a former Bush administration appointee running a business out of a rundown storefront in New Mexico. Under a $238,000 no bid contract Environmental Dimensions supposedly manages, maintains and operates RadNet, the only tool the public has to see if we are being subjected to nuclear fallout. The blogger that broke this story states that Environmental Dimensions has tripled their revenue in recent years. The company cites a different address as their mailing address. This shows up as a tiny house in Albuquerque. EDI was also part of a 12 million dollar contract in 2010 along with a couple of other contractors. The contract provides environmental & remediation services to the US Corps of Engineers. EDI claims to have been in business since 1990 but owner, Ms. Bradshaw worked for the DoD in 2006.

The NRC has the authority under the Atomic Energy Act to license commercial spent fuel reprocessing facilities. Currently, Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Part 50, ``Domestic Licensing of Production and Utilization Facilities,'' provides the licensing framework for production and utilization facilities. Although a reprocessing facility is one type of production facility, its industrial processes are more akin to fuel cycle processes. This framework was established in the 1970's to license the first U.S. reprocessing facilities. The policy decision by the Carter Administration to cease reprocessing initiatives was based, in part, on the proliferation risks posed by the early reprocessing technology. While that policy was reversed during the Reagan Administration, until recently there was no commercial interest in reprocessing and, hence, no need to update the existing reprocessing regulatory framework in 10 CFR part 50.

Although commercial reprocessing interest waned, the Department of Energy (DOE) continued to pursue reprocessing technology development through the National Laboratories. The DOE has sought to decrease proliferation risk and spent fuel high-level waste through developing more sophisticated reprocessing technologies. During the Bush Administration, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) renewed interest in commercial reprocessing. The GNEP sought to expand the use of civilian nuclear power globally and close the nuclear fuel cycle through reprocessing spent fuel and deploying fast reactors to burn long-lived actinides. In response to these initiatives, the Commission directed the staff to complete an analysis of 10 CFR part 50 to identify regulatory gaps for licensing an advanced reprocessing facility.

In mid-2008, two nuclear industry companies informed the NRC of their intent to seek a license for a reprocessing facility in the U.S. An additional company expressed its support for updating the regulatory framework for reprocessing, but stopped short of stating its intent to seek a license for such a facility. At the time, the NRC staff also noted that progress on some GNEP initiatives had waned and it appeared appropriate to shift the focus of the NRC staff's efforts from specific GNEP-facility regulations to a more broadly applicable framework for commercial reprocessing facilities.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is sending more inspectors to a Virginia nuclear power plant to further review what damage last week's 5.8 magnitude earthquake may have caused.

North Anna station near Louisa, Va., about 40 miles northwest from plant operator's Dominion's Richmond headquarters. The plant is less than six miles from the August 23 earthquake's epicenter in Mineral, Va.

The NRC stressed that the expanded investigation does not necessarily mean the plant is any less safe, but they have formed an Augmented Inspection Team to conduct the investigation. According to the NRC, an AIT is formed by the NRC "to review more significant events or issues at NRC-licensed facilities." This is an additional investigation after the NRC initially sent a seismic expert and another structural expert, according to an NRC statement released Monday, to "assist the agency's resident inspectors on site."

As if the closing steel mills and automobile manufacturing plants weren't bad enough, some of the oldest, most risky atomic reactors in the U.S. are located in the Midwest. Worse still, they are on the shores of the Great Lakes, putting at risk the drinking water supply for 40 million people downstream in the U.S., Canada, and a large number of Native American First Nations. Altogether, 33 atomic reactors are located on the shorelines of the Great Lakes. Two of the most infamous of these radiologically risky "Rust Belt reactors" are Entergy Nuclear's Palisades in southwest Michigan, and FirstEnergy's Davis-Besse in northwest Ohio.

Last month, U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), a long-time watchdog on the nuclear industry, wrote the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) about an acidic, radioactive leak representing a "crisis in the control room at the Palisades nuclear power plant." The leakage had been ongoing for a year, and was being "contained" in glorified buckets referred to by Entergy PR spokesman Mark Savage as "catch basins." Although the leak came to light when Palisades was forced to shutdown after its rate reached more than 30 gallons per day, it had been ongoing for months at a rate of 15 gallons per day. The tritiated and borated water is leaking from a 300,000 gallon Safety Injection Refueling Water storage tank, which is safety critical for both reactor core and radiological containment cooling. Whistleblowers contacted Washington, D.C. attorney Billie Pirner Garde, who alerted Rep. Markey, who wrote NRC. The NRC Office of Investigations has launched a probe into potential Entergy wrongdoing. On July 17th, NRC issued a "Confirmatory Action Letter" which enables Palisades to keep operating into 2013, even if the leak increases to nearly 38 gallons per day!

Markey demanded a copy of an internal Entergy report surveying its own workers on "safety culture" at Palisades. Michigan Radio obtained a copy, which reveals "a lack of accountability at all levels," and a workforce deeply distrustful of management, fearful that they will be harassed and punished if they dare to raise safety concerns.

NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS): Publicly available documents created or received at the NRC are available online in the NRC's Library at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/ adams.html. From this page, the public can gain entry into ADAMS, which provides text and image files of NRC's public documents. If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there are problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the NRC's PDR reference staff at 1- 800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr.resource@nrc.gov. The Ross In Situ Recovery Uranium Project License Application is available electronically under ADAMS Accession Number ML110120063.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Friday it does not expect to allow U.S. power company Dominion to restart the 1,806-megawatt North Anna nuclear power plant in Virginia until sometime after an Oct. 21 meeting.A spokesman at the NRC, Scott Burnell, could not say when the NRC would be ready to allow Dominion to restart the plant's two reactors, which shut down safely following the Aug. 23 earthquake in Virginia, noting the agency does not expect to be ready to allow the restart prior to the Oct. 21 meeting.

At the meeting to be held at the NRC headquarters in Rockville, Maryland, the NRC said the commissioners will hear presentations from Dominion and the management of the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation and the NRC's Region II office in Atlanta.Dominion has said the 903-MW Unit 1 at North Anna would be ready for restart by the end of last month. The 903-MW Unit 2 will remain shut for a planned refueling outage.One megawatt powers about 1,000 homes.After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan was damaged in March by an earthquake and tsunami, the NRC is taking no chances and is not ready to allow Dominion to restart the reactors.The Aug. 23 quake in Virginia generated stronger ground motion than what was anticipated during the licensing of North Anna, located about 40 miles northwest of Richmond.The NRC has said it wants Dominion to prove the plant can operate safely before the agency will approve of its restart.

The Robinson plant remains offline. The 719-megawatt plant was the first commercial nuclear reactor in the Southeast and has been producing electricity since 1971. The plant shut down early Oct. 8 because of an electrical problem in one of the reactor coolant pump motors. Inspectors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission returned to the plant Oct. 12. NRC spokesman Roger Hannah said in an earlier report that a team of inspectors is examining the operation of the pumps that supply water to the steam generators. Robinson shut down in September after a control problem with one of the plant’s turbines, about three months after the plant re-opened. Two electrical system fires led to a nearly four-month shutdown of the plant, which re-opened in July. Those fires and a reactor shutdown March 28 did not adversely affect public health or safety, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in June. Conditions did not rise to a level that threatened plant safety during the fires, and no measurable radiation was released from the plant’s reactor.

NRC inspectors did find some shortcomings in equipment, training, operator response and performance and some other areas agency officials said would require additional NRC review. The plant’s reactor remained shut down until the NRC completed most of its additional reviews, officials said. The initial fire resulted from a malfunction in a cable and circuit breaker, NRC’s Region II Branch Chief Robert Haag said. The NRC originally dispatched a three-person special inspection team to the Robinson plant in response to the fires, but further review pointed to the need for additional inspection, the agency said. An Augmented Inspection Team (AIT) is formed by the NRC to review particularly significant events or issues at NRC-licensed facilities, and the Robinson AIT included members of the original inspection team as well as five additional inspectors.

Haag led the Robinson AIT and said the response was adequate and the fire protection system responded as it was designed. Duncan, the plant’s new leader, has been with Progress Energy and predecessor Carolina Power & Light since 1980. He served in positions of increasing responsibility at the company’s Harris (N.C.) and Robinson nuclear plants before assuming his current role at the company’s headquarters in Raleigh in 2008.

US nuclear power plants mostly exist in a legal “get out of jail free” land of LLC (Legal Liability Corporation) ownership. While big energy conglomerates like Entergy own the bulk of the commercial nuclear power plants in the US, these plants are owned by individual LLC companies that have one asset, the power plant. Through a network of LLC companies and holding companies these energy giants are able to suck all the profits out of these nuclear power plants but shoulder none of the risk if something goes bad.

The US has a nuclear accident liability law, Price-Anderson. This law sets up a limited fund that all licensed nuclear plant owners would pay into in the event of an accident. They only pay premiums into this fund after an accident happens. Under this law each plant is required to have $300 million in liability insurance that would pay before Price-Anderson would kick in. Proving any other sort of cash reserves, ability to pay for an extended outage or an accident (including Price-Anderson premiums) has been largely voluntary by the power companies. Even when proof of financial assets is asked for by the NRC it is calculated based on projected income estimates done by the power company. The NRC admits they are out of their expertise when it comes to finance and also does no investigation to assure these estimates have any basis in fact. The NRC has also complained repeatedly that deregulation of the energy industry is causing a lack of safety and maintenance to become a large problem as companies try to extract as much profit as possible up and out of these LLC companies to the parent company, leaving insufficient money to safely operate these nuclear plants. Many of these plants in LLC situations are among the aging reactor fleet from the 1960′s & 1970′s. As these plants ask for operating license extensions from the NRC, financial soundness is not part of the review.

If a nuclear power plant has a major accident, is found to have an expensive damage situation or is facing decommissioning the LLC that owns it can file for bankruptcy and walk away. The parent company has no financial risk or liability. The NRC has expressed doubt about being able to “pierce the corporate veil” in court and has diverted into settlements every time it has run into this issue with an aging plant facing a financial crisis. The NRC also has no special standing in a bankruptcy case where they can compel Price-Anderson premium payments or for the nuclear power company to pay funds towards decommissioning. It is not totally clear where the decommissioning trust fund lies as these funds are “sold” along with the plant when a new company takes over a nuclear power plant.

at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station near Blair, Nebraska, the river is already lapping at the Aqua Dams -- giant plastic tubes filled with water -- that form a stockade around the plant's buildings. The plant has become an island.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a "yellow finding PDF" (indicating a safety significance somewhere between moderate and high) for the plant last October, after determining that the Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) "did not adequately prescribe steps to mitigate external flood conditions in the auxiliary building and intake structure" in the event of a worst-case Missouri River flood. The auxiliary building -- which surrounds the reactor building like a horseshoe flung around a stake -- is where the plant's spent-fuel pool and emergency generators are located.

OPPD has since taken corrective measures, including sealing potential floodwater-penetration points, installing emergency flood panels, and revising sandbagging procedures. It's extremely unlikely that this year's flood, no matter how historic, will turn into a worst-case scenario: That would happen only if an upstream dam were to instantaneously disintegrate. Nevertheless, in March of this year the NRC identified Fort Calhoun as one of three nuclear plants requiring the agency's highest level of oversight. In the meantime, the water continues to rise

Nuclear regulators already have “sufficient information and knowledge” to deal with earthquake risks at existing U.S. reactors and don’t need to wait for a broader review, a safety advocate said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission developed seismic rules for new plants in 1996 and has since approved preliminary construction for proposed nuclear units at a Southern Co. plant in Georgia and certified an early reactor design by Toshiba Corp.’s Westinghouse Electric unit, according to comments filed with the agency today by David Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Union of Concerned Scientists.

“If the NRC truly lacks sufficient information about seismic hazards and how safety at nuclear power reactors is affected, then the agency cannot responsibly have issued early site permits and certified new reactor designs,” he said. The NRC is in the process of evaluating seismic hazards in the central and eastern U.S. in response to updated geologic information. By the end of this year, the agency plans to develop an earthquake probability model for reactor owners to use and may require all U.S. plants to review their seismic risks within the next two years.

The NRC has said “repeatedly” the broad seismic review “deals with an issue that fails to present an immediate safety concern,” Scott Burnell, an agency spokesman, said in an e- mail. Existing plants are built to “safely withstand the earthquakes at their sites,” he said. Earthquake Protections The NRC is weighing requirements to bolster plant protections against earthquakes and floods in the wake of the nuclear disaster in Japan caused by a March temblor and tsunami that led to radiation leaks and meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant.

Dominion Virginia Power thinks it will be ready to restart its North Anna 1 nuclear reactor in two weeks and the North Anna 2 by mid-October, if federal regulators approve. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff members indicated Thursday that making sure the reactors, which were shut down by the Aug. 23 earthquake nearby, are safe to begin operating again might take longer. The staff said at the meeting with utility officials that it had plenty of questions as the agency looks into the Louisa County power station's design to resist seismic damage.

Preliminary information from the U.S. Geological Survey indicates that the earthquake produced a shaking force in the region twice as strong as the North Anna plant was designed to handle, the NRC said. Dominion Virginia Power acknowledges that the force from the earthquake exceeded the plant's theoretical design strength. The 5.8-magnitude earthquake caused only minor damage that did not affect nuclear safety, the company said. The quake also caused 25 of the 115-ton steel casks storing highly radioactive used fuel rods to shift as much as 4½ inches out of position on their concrete storage pad.

No U.S. nuclear power plant has been tripped off-line by an earthquake before, the NRC said.