March 11, 2014 marks the third anniversary since the accident at the Fukushima Plant in Japan. The lessons learned from this event have had worldwide implications. Within the United States, new rule making and industry initiatives have been put in place to ensure that all our plants can respond to a beyond design basis accident.
Each of our individual site Fukushima teams has been working on a multitude of actions to comply with these changes and new requirements. In early 2013, the Utilities Service Alliance (USA) established a project team to aid the member sites in staying current with industry and regulatory activities and to help facilitate site response actions. In addition, members of the USA Board of Directors have assumed key leadership positions in leading the nuclear industry response actions.
Much of the initial industry work included developing response strategies, performing walk downs, establishing equipment needs and assessing vulnerabilities to a beyond design basis natural disaster. This work will now begin to manifest as physical, process and procedural changes in our sites.
Randy Ebright the USA Director for Fukushima Response adds, “In the near future, almost everyone at our plants will be touched by the changes relating to Fukushima response. This includes procedure changes, physical plant changes, and changes to ERO drills, new training requirements and participating in studies and assessments. Site Fukushima leads participate in a variety of USA team activities. These fleet actions are designed to reduce burden, cost and provide for real time sharing of information and experiences. “
Examples of USA fleet activities include a common design for Spent Fuel Pool level instrumentation (utilizing radar level monitoring technology) and modifying nuclear safety culture assessment survey and interview questions (based on Fukushima lessons learned and INPO IER 13-10 requirements).
Salem Unit 1 and DC Cook Unit 1 are two of the first plants in the United States that will complete actions to become “FLEX Compliant”. This must be satisfied for these sites prior to restart from the fall 2014 refueling outages. This will complete a variety changes needed to assure that plants can respond to a beyond design basis natural disaster.
In order to be “FLEX Compliant”, Installation and testing of permanent Spent Fuel Pool Level instrumentation must be completed, allowing operators to remotely monitor spent fuel pool level during and following the event. Sites must also have in place equipment that can be mobilized in case the beyond design basis natural disaster renders plant equipment inoperable. This equipment must be stored in protected locations and can be mobilized, connected, and run by the site staff present on site at the time of the event. Physical plant modifications needed to be able to install this equipment must be completed and procedures and training must also be completed.
To provide an additional layer of preparation, the nuclear industry is establishing two regional response centers (located in Phoenix and Memphis). The purpose of these response centers is to provide additional back up equipment should the plant mobile equipment need to be augmented or replaced. This equipment can be transported to an offsite staging area or brought directly to a site (over land or by helicopter transport). The equipment will arrive within 24 hours of being requested by a site. Proof of concept exercises will be completed, individual site response plans will be established, equipment will be purchased and staged for transport and the Regional Response Centers will be declared operational in support of the 2014 fall outage plants.
Beyond FLEX, the USA Fuksuhima Project team continues to work in assessing seismic and flooding hazards as well as addressing a variety of other NRC orders and industry commitments. These actions will further each individual plant’s ability to respond to a beyond design basis natural event.
Site employees will participate in new training to ensure that they understand the Fukushima event and the lessons learned. There will also be changes to site ERO drills in the future to ensure that site employees train and assess their ability to respond to a beyond design basis event.
Ebright adds that there is still much work to go. “The remainder of the USA fleet will be required to be FLEX complaint by 2015. We will use the lessons learned from Salem and DC Cook to help each of the other sites in streamlining their response plans. The Fukushima Project team remains very engaged in other industry collaboration activities and responses, such as installation of filtered containment ventilation and completing modifications of containment venting design changes for our BWR members. Current time lines detail some industry response actions into 2020.”
Beyond the first tier of response actions there are two additional tiers of actions. This includes providing for enhanced Fuel pool makeup and providing for passive hydrogen controls in containments. The USA Fukushima response team continues to work with several USA core peer teams to align response actions and integration of Fukushima response actions and activities. This partnering helps to avoid duplication of efforts and helps to ensure that our sites are fully prepared for a beyond design basis natural disaster.