Aerial view of the River Bend nuclear power plant near St. Francisville.
Schematic view of how a boiling water reactor, like Entergy’s River Bend nuclear power plant, works.
Aerial view of the River Bend nuclear power plant near St. Francisville.
Schematic view of how a boiling water reactor, like Entergy’s River Bend nuclear power plant, works.
Entergy’s River Bend nuclear power plant near St. Francisville was forced into a temporary emergency shutdown over the weekend due to a technical issue, but was brought back online the following day, officials said.
The shutdown, known as a “SCRAM” incident and which saw control rods dropped into the plant’s reactor core to halt its nuclear reaction, occurred on Saturday.
“Shortly before midnight Friday, River Bend was raising power from 30% following a prior shutdown,” said Victor Dricks, spokesperson for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
“Control room operators noticed a problem with the plant’s feedwater heating system, which preheats water before it is recirculated back into the reactor. Procedures required a manual shutdown so that plant safety parameters are not challenged. All control rods fully inserted with no complications and on Saturday the plant was completely shut down. The licensee was able to correct the feedwater issue and restarted on Sunday.”
Entergy Nuclear officials gave a similar explanation for the incident.
“Operators responded appropriately and brought the plant offline to make corrections, which will include valve tuning to ensure the valves respond seamlessly to operator inputs,” said Entergy Nuclear spokesperson Brandon Scardigli.
The emergency shutdown occurred just six days after the NRC told Entergy officials that the River Bend plant will receive a notice of violation for failing to obtain an amendment to the reactor’s operating license before changing its internal rules for how to supply emergency cooling water to the plant in the event of a major accident.
According to the NRC violation notice, Entergy’s license requires it to have a 30-day cooling capacity available in the event of a major accident. That 30-day capacity must be enough for the accident to be evaluated and corrective action to be taken.
In March, testing during refueling of the River Bend reactor found that leakage in a standby system providing reactor cooling water was significant enough to render the heat sink system inoperable, in part because it would require additional water after 22 days. There were no actual consequences to the reactor or to public health from that incident, either.
An alternative supply is available to replenish water in the heat sink, but that option was never added to the plant’s license, NRC officials found during an inspection of the plant that ended on Sept. 30. The issue does not represent an immediate safety threat, Dricks said.
That inspection also identified another half-dozen issues that did not trigger violation citations.
Despite not rising to the level of either immediate safety or health issues, a physicist with a nonprofit organization that critiques the nuclear industry said the combination of the shutdown and multiple near-violations is worrisome.
“It’s never good when a boiling water reactor enters an unstable operating regime,” said Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Overall, this is not a good inspection report.”
Lyman pointed out that River Bend already is listed in the NRC’s “regulatory response” column, which requires additional inspections and reviews of its operations by the agency because of past problems. River Bend is one of only seven on that list, out of the 93 reactors operating nationwide.
“I would say that this report paints the picture of a plant with serious management problems that could endanger worker and public health and safety,” Lyman said, adding that the more significant heat sink issue should be considered serious.
Email Mark Schleifstein at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter, @MSchleifstein.
His work is supported with a grant funded by the Walton Family Foundation and administered by the Society of Environmental Journalists.
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Entergy's nuclear plant north of Baton Rouge was forced into temporary emergency shutdown – NOLA.com
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