http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/Y2K/Y2KCP.html

This is a big document, internally linked.

quote~~~~~~~~~~

The task force decided that the most prudent course of action was to identify a "planning scenario" that falls somewhere between the two extremes. This planning scenario would encompass events that are beyond our current best estimate of likely consequences, but that would allow the staff to respond to unforeseen possibilities.

end quote~~~~~~

I only read the CP section fast, and decided to pass it on to you people before I leave for the evening. I know I want to read the whole doc. Has anyone been following the newer nuke plant audits, and care to post on them?

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), February 02, 1999

Answers

Mitchell-- just now tried the link you gave. CERN reported:

Error 404

Not found - file doesn't exist or is read protected [even tried multi]

------------------------------------------------------------------------ CERN httpd 3.0

(Posted 11:56 PM EST 2 Feb 1999)

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), February 02, 1999.

>Error 404 Not found - file doesn't exist or is read protected [even tried multi]

---------------------------------------------------------------------- -- CERN httpd 3.0<

Tom;

I just checked the site using MSIE 4.72 and it worked for me. It is a very long post though. It also has a gif (the seal of NRC) which slows the loading.

S.O.B.

-- sweetolebob (La) (buffgun@hotmail.com), February 03, 1999.

http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/COMMISSION/COMS/com1998-036/y2kcplan.html

This one takes you directly to the doc.

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), February 03, 1999.

Wow - what to say after reading that sukker. They even brought in the embeddeds in the hydroelectric dams, someone must have seen my email from last Apr/May. ;-> Seriously though, overall I give this a good grade, when viewed as a Contingency Plan. There is enough diverse info in the plan to answer a lot of common questions.

However, it would seem in reading between the lines, that NRC is worried about telecoms and grids performing at a reliability level that is intimated by the NERC reports and the individual telecoms. GPS is indicated several times to be a crucial component for performance.

It seems to me that NRC is using the worst case scenario they can actually do anything about. Yet that scenario is quite rosey in its actual hit strength, relying as it does, on most of the telecoms and utilities having little to no problems. Of course, I love their little aside: they do not think even their scenario will take place based upon their assessment of the y2k situation. (they must be reading the executive summaries and Mitch Ratcliffe's articles).

NRC audits show that some of the plants are almost guaranteed to either be shut down, or will just fail. And the time frames remaining for remediation action almost guarantee that certainly a few plants will fail. It might be that the NRC CP was prepared prior to the release of the audits, because it would seem that the NRC CP needs to take into account some of the rather dismal audit disclosures, yet it doesn't.

I thought the regulatory response section was interesting. The first time I've seen the new party line in print, altho it is common knowledge, ie. electrical production is so essential that "other rules" can and will be bent. This was the area I think is pertainent to the NRC audits. If a plant can continue running safely right up to y2k, but will either brownout or blackout, and can be shut down "safely" - what is going to be the NRC response? Since they know ahead of time the problem, they must gamble upon many variables that indeed the plant can be safely shut down if allowed to run until y2k. Because of their rather rosey scenario, never really dealing with civil disorder, they are leaving themselves, and us, with a possible problem if, in fact, the affected plant is unable to safely shut down because of factors brought about by local civil disorder. Not only safety issues, but grid disconnection issues are inherent when the problem is looked at this way.

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), February 03, 1999.