The following was posted over on Gary North's site this morning.

(reference http://www.garynorth.com/y2k/detail_.cfm/2863)

Gary states this was an email that someone sent him. It addresses an issue that I believe needs further reseach - I'm not willing to dismiss this one out of hand because of the source. If anyone can point me to additional sources, I'd be most grateful.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commision (NRC) has apparently stated that nuclear generating plants must be 'ready' by July 1, 1999 or shutdown.

(What precisely, did the NRC say and where can this be verified?)

The letter to North was as follows:

--- begin quote ------------------------------ As a nuclear engineer, I read with great interest the article about the NRC mandate for all nuke plants to be compliant or else shut-down. I was discussing the article with a couple of friends of mine who are also nuclear engineers. We were musing about the NRC's deadline---July 1, 1999.

At first we could not understand why the plants needed to be shut-down six months in advance. Then it hit us. A 1000 electric megawatt nuclear plant generates about 3000 megawatts of heat energy. That is 3 BILLION watts of heat energy. When a plant is scramed, the nuclear fission stops almost instantaneously, however the core still generates a tremendous amount of heat. This heat is called residual heat and is a result of the natural cooling-off of the core. under normal circumstances, special pumps called Residual Heat Removal pumps circulate water through the core to keep it cool and remove excess heat. Emergency diesel generators can supply power to these RHR pumps whenever power to the plant is lost. Also under normal circumstances, it takes approximately 4 months (depending on the operating power of the core) to cool a core to the point that loss of cooling will not damage the core. In other words, nuclear plants need six months to ensure their cores are cool enough and won't melt if power to the plant is permanently lost.

Imagine the ensuing mess if nukes can't cool their cores.

Nicholas Vrettos

----- end quote -------------

This is admittedly one 'expert's' speculation. But if what this person is saying is true, it is significant and disturbing information.

That's why I believe it needs additional research. Opinions are fine but what I'm really looking for is a way to clearly confirm or refute this speculation based on verifiable facts.

Please, no 'anti/pro North' battles on this one. I deliberately omitted Gary's commentary because what Gary is saying about this is not nearly as important as confirming or refuting what Mr Vrettos is saying.

Any assistance in researching this is appreciated.

Arnie

-- Arnie Rimmer (arnie_rimmer@usa.net), October 17, 1998

Answers

Arnie,

Thanks for the heads-up. I found this report by searching the NRC site (http://www.nrc.gov) with the keyword "july 1999" http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/Y2K/Y2Kpubcom.html

It's really long, so I'm printing it out to read by the fire. Looks VERY interesting...

BTW, I though GN's comment quite restrained...

Thanks!

Arewyn

-- Arewyn (nordic@northnet.net), October 17, 1998.

Oops!

Sorry about the messed up URL line

http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/Y2K/Y2Kpubcom.html

Try again!

-- Arewyn (nordic@northnet.net), October 17, 1998.

The document is a bit difficult to interpret, for example, two section that caught my attention were:

"The NRC staff does not plan to change the July 1, 1999 date for certification of Y2K readiness. However,sufficient flexibility has been provided in the final GL to accommodate completion of some remediation and implementation activities at normally scheduled outages after July 1, 1999. It is the NRC staff's belief that unless the majority of the Y2K program remediation, validation and implementation activities are completed by mid-1999, leaving only a few such activities scheduled for the Fall 1999 outage, the facility will not in all probability be Y2K ready by January 1, 2000. The GL will be revised to indicate that actual Y2K readiness after July 1, 1999 is acceptable, however, certification that the facility will be Y2K ready will be required by July 1, 1999. The NRC staff recognizes that Y2K readiness may include compensatory measures and contingency plans in cases where actual Y2K compliance for some computer systems cannot be achieved. "

and then this related section:

"As regards changing the date for Y2K readiness certification from July 1, 1999 to October 1, 1999, the date will remain July 1, 1999. However, as stated in the resolution to Comment No. 3 above, some flexibility has been provided in the GL to accommodate completion of certain activities in the Y2K readiness program after July 1, 1999."

As I read this, the plants are not required to actually be 'Y2K ready' by the July 1, 1999 date, only that someone 'certifies' that they will be ready by Jan 1, 2000

Who provides this 'certification'? The plants themselves? If so, does any independent group audit and verify such 'certification'?

Arnie

-- Arnie Rimmer (arnie_rimmer@usa.net), October 18, 1998.

Arnie, I beleive from what I got out of this article is that the NRC insists on all safety systems being ready by July 1999, and that if the plant's safety systems are compliant by that date, but other non-safety related systems are not ready yet, they'd give them extensions until October IF they can provide enough evidence to the NRC that those systems will indeed be ready by October.

Anyone else? Am I way off the mark?

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), October 18, 1998.