More Nuclear Priesthood Failures

[webfarmer]

Safety Rating for Nation's Biggest Nuclear Plant Lowered - CNN (22 Feb 2007)

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday downgraded the safety rating of the nation's largest nuclear plant, subjecting it to more inspectors and a level of scrutiny shared by just one other plant in the nation. The NRC made the announcement following three years of problems in various safety systems at the Palo Verde nuclear plant west of Phoenix.

Inspectors in September found that one of its emergency diesel generators had been broken for 18 days. Emergency generators are critically important at nuclear reactors, providing electricity to pumps, valves and control rooms if the main electrical supply fails."

Comments

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

Gah. That gives me the hives.

I'm thankful it's only the hives, though.

[webfarmer.livejournal.com]

Well so far only the hives. A heeby jeeby outbreak is more likely with me.

[webfarmer.livejournal.com]

Actually, as I think about it a bit more, I don't know why they are not required by the NRC to shut down the operation if the backup systems are not operational.

Then again, on yet a second thought, I guess I do know why. The NRC's origin was from a split of the AEC back when it had both promotion and regulation duties.

The AEC became, with some other bureaucratic shuffling, the NRC and the ERDA organizations. Later ERDA become part of DOE. NRC was supposed to just do regulation and ERDA was to do the promotions so as not to have any conflict of interests.

Now that regulatory role has once again been compromised and we're about back to square one with an organization that is defacto promoting nukes along with regulating them.