From - http://www.cbn.org/y2k/cowles.htm

ON NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS AND THE NRC

Cowles: "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's mission in life is not to keep the plants operating under any circumstances. The NRC's mission in life is to keep the plant safe. And that means that they require them all to shut down because that's the only way they know they're going to be safe. They'll have them all shut down. That's why they put in a hard deadline of June next year for all the nuclear plants in the country to certify to them that they are or will be Year 2000 ready by December 31, 1999. They've got to certify that in June."

Cowles also explains the difficulty on getting reliable information from the nuclear industry in general: "I spent most of my time on the nuclear end of the business, and I know how sensitive the nuclear industry is to any criticism at all. And when you start talking about this, they get defensive. Instead of talking openly and honestly about what the issues are, and what they've got to accomplish, and how they're going to go about accomplishing it, they just put up this big defensive wall that's almost impossible to get through. And that's the nature and culture of the business."

BUT THE SAFETY SHUTDOWN SYSTEMS SHOULD BE OKAY

Some good news: Looks like we're not headed for a Y2K-induced meltdown. According to Cowles, the safety shutdown systems are largely analog: "I agree with the Nuclear Energy Institute that safe shutdown systems in nuclear power plants are by and large not going to be impacted by the Year 2000 problem because it's solid state based, or it's analog relays, the actual safe shut-down systems, themselves. But in the necessary support systems, you have a lot of digital control out there."

-- Mr. Kennedy (y2kPCfixes@MotivatedSeller.com), January 28, 1999

Answers

The greenies will try and force a shutdown. It will be ugly.

-- dave (wootendave@hotmail.com), January 29, 1999.

Mr Kennedy, I surely hope that the NRC has impossed plans to react if the normal power grid goes down first. I understand that the Nuke plants need outside electrical power to operate the analog systems for cooling of the "CORE". Perhaps I'm getting the right info maybe someout in the forum knows ??

-- Furie (furieart@dnet.net), January 29, 1999.

That right! I have no doubt that the safety systems will operate fine. However, I do have doubt about the ability of the industry to provide the external power to sool the core adequatly if the plants are not taken off line prior to 1/1/00 (intentionally non-compliant because I think this is the date the industry will be dealing with).

-- Steve Watson (swatson1@gte.net), January 29, 1999.

Steve, Furie -

Not true, all, none, or parts of the cooling systems can be internal power from self-starting (non-electrical interface) diesels from compressed air and local controls.

Manual and bypass methods also available even if no internal power is available. Shutdown cooling is not, repeat, _not_ a problem.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 29, 1999.

I can't put my finger on the source of this, though I think it was either Rick Cowles or Dick Mills at Westergard2000, but apparently the community around the nuke has to be able to respond to an emergency at the plant for the nuke to continue operation. For example, if emergency services in the nearest community can't respond to a fire at the plant, the rules say the plant has to close down. Would those rules be rigidly enforced in this situation? I bet we'll find out.

My point is that factors outside the plant can force a shutdown. I'll try and find the link.

-- Lewis (aslanshow@yahoo.com), January 29, 1999.

Here is another angle on the energy sources for electrical power.

From an insert that is included in the San Diego Gas & Electric bill:

Power Content Label (sources for electricity)

Natural Gas: 30%

HydroElectric: 23%

Coal: 21%

Nuclear: 15%

Eligible Renewable*: 11%

*includes biomass & waste (2%), geothermal (5%), small hydro (2%), solar (<1%), wind 1%.

This says the Nuclear source is 15% of SDG&E and 15% of California 1997 power mix. SO if electricity is needed to power down the reactors, they can get it from the other sources. Data from California Energy Commission.

-- Jon (jonmiles@pacbell.net), January 29, 1999.

Lewis, it was Cowles - here is a statement by him on that point: (excerpt from Cowles Interview

COWLES: I think domestically, in the US, the nuclear industry is not so much confronted with an operational issue with Y2K as with a regulatory and paperwork issue. What they're confronted with is the necessity of meeting very strict regulatory guidelines in operating the plants. They have a certain operating envelope that they have to be in at all times. And if you're outside that operating envelope into a region where you don't know where you are, you can't run the plant. That's the concern with Y2K and the nuclear industry. I'm not concerned that there's going to be a nuclear plant meltdown in the United States that's initiated by this issue. What I'm concerned about is that if you've got a plant operating, and all of a sudden they start losing all of their monitoring and indication, and the operators don't know the status of the plant- that's when you get into a TMI or a Chernobyl situation. End excerpt

You might also be interested in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission site Nuke Regulatory Commission This is very, very DRY reading, but you'll get a lot of information that people don't take the time to read or comment on. These types of documents give us "fact-diggers" a lot of ammo, but prove boring and uneventful for the tabloid types ;-)

-- Mr. Kennedy (y2kPCfixes@MotivatedSeller.com), January 29, 1999.

No.

I expect toe see "waivers" on "non mission critcal items" like radiation monitoring, security access and certain "non essetial reporting".

Take down the nukes and the Eastern seaboard grids go down immediately. They supply about 30-40% of the Eastern power. Supply margin is only about 15%. What would you do if you were Absolute Ruler? Shutdown the plants and definitely cause a blackout or wait for Rollover and hope for the best?

-- RD. ->H (drherr@erols.com), January 30, 1999.

Yes. New Jersey is about 60% dependent on Nuclear produced power. However, the NRC is excercising the very Nuclear Regulatory powers that they are sole prprietors of. They don't care whether the nukes are making power or not. That's not their job. Their job is to make sure nukes are operating to extremely stringent regulations.

-- Mr. Kennedy (y2kPCfixes@MotivatedSeller.com), January 30, 1999.