ML111020468

G20110174/EDATS: OEDO-2011-0195 - Response E-mail from D. Screnci to Floyd Rudmin 2.206 - Nuclear Power Safety at Nine Mile Point

ML111020468
Person / Time
Site:	Nine Mile Point
Issue date:	04/12/2011
From:	Diane Screnci Office of Public Affairs, NRC Region 1
To:	Rudmin F - No Known Affiliation
Guzman R, NRR/DORL, 415-1030
Shared Package
ML111020384	List: ML111020370 ML111020468
References
G20110174, OEDO-2011-0195
Download: ML111020468 (3)

Text

From: Screnci, Diane To: profrudmin@yahoo.ca

Subject:

FW: concern about nuclear power safety at Nine Mile reactor Date: Tuesday, April 12, 2011 2:15:49 PM

Dear Mr. Rudmin,

I am responding to your e-mail of March 14, in which you asked that the NRC confirm that the nuclear power plants near Lake Ontario - Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station and FitzPatrick in Oswego, N.Y. - have multiple back-up systems of different types; and if necessary, order the company to install the necessary cooling systems.

The NRC requires that safety-significant structures, systems, and components be designed to take into account the most severe natural phenomena historically reported for the site and surrounding area. The NRC is confident that the design of these plants makes it highly unlikely that a similar event could occur in the United States. Significant effort goes into emergency response planning, preparation and training.

The NRC requires nuclear power plant designs to include multiple and diverse safety systems. Plants must test their emergency response capabilities on a regular basis, and plant operators are required to be capable of responding to significant events.

All U.S. nuclear power plants have emergency operating procedures, as well as severe accident management guidelines that ensure that containment structural integrity takes priority in an accident situation. In addition, NRC regulations require plants to have plans in place that would allow them to mitigate even worst-case scenarios. Since 9/11, the NRC has implemented requirements for licensees to have additional response capabilities for extreme situations.

Finally, the NRC requires that all nuclear power plants are able to withstand a station blackout (SBO) - a complete loss of alternating current (AC) electric power to the station.

To meet this requirement, all nuclear power plants performed an SBO coping analysis that determined how long the plant could cope without AC power. Coping is the time it takes until off site power is restored (i.e., the grid) or an emergency diesel generator, located either onsite or offsite, is restored to service. During this coping period, the plant must rely either on batteries or alternate AC power.

While the NRC remains confident that the design of U.S. nuclear power plants ensures the continued protection of public health and safety and the environment, the NRC staff continues to analyze the events in Japan and will develop lessons learned and recommendations to improve plant safety, as appropriate.

There is a variety of additional information on the NRCs website at www.nrc.gov/japan/japan.info.html. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely, Diane Screnci Sr. Public Affairs Officer USNRC, RI

610/337-5330 From: Floyd Rudmin [1]

Sent: Monday, March 14, 2011 6:14 AM To: OPA1 RESOURCE

Subject:

concern about nuclear power safety at Nine Mile reactor Good morning.

I live in Kingston, Ontario, across the lake from the reactor at Oneida.

The Chernobyl reactor failure and now the Fukushima reactor failures (plural), all have been caused by lack of back-up cooling of the reactor cores. What is shameful, is that in both sites, there was only one redundancy back up for cooling. The Japanese and American engineers who planned the Fukushima reactors, could not imagine that an earthquake and a tidal wave would happen at the same time. The earthquake automatically shut down the reactor, as planned, but at the same time terminating the reactors own electrical supply to run the pumps. The diesel generators started up, as planned. And then the tidal wave disabled the generators, and the reactor core went uncooled for many hours.

If we know that loss of coolant will cause catastrophe, then why do these systems have only one set of back up cooling systems?

There should be 4 or 5 back-up electrical systems, of different types, including batteries. There should be on-site back-up supplies of coolant fluids. Several different storage systems, not just one extra. It should not happen that a nuclear power plant has to pump sea water to cool a reactor. There should be several back-up pump systems, not one.

All of the redundant back-ups should be stored and sited in different places and in different ways.

Can you confirm to me that the Oneida nuclear power plant has multiple back-up systems, of different types? If they do not, would you please take immediate action to command the company that runs that reactor to spend the money to have many redundancy back-ups, of different types, sited at different spots, stored in different ways.

Sincerely, Floyd Rudmin