Following is a copy of an entry to this blog on September 8, 2007.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
NRC Knows Little About Ultrasonic Fuel Cleaning
What is fantastic is that our NRC knows much more about the Paks event and the associated chemical cleaning equipment than it knows about ultrasonic fuel cleaning in the USA.
I sent the following e-mail to Chairman@nrc.gov and received an interesting reply from his Director, Division of Safety Systems, Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
PRM-50-84 and ultrasonic fuel cleaning and chemical cleaningAs an afterthought, it occurs to me that the NRC should have a complete record of experience with ultrasonic fuel cleaning at the nuclear power reactors that it licenses in the USA. Also, by now, the NRC should have a somewhat complete set of facts regarding chemical cleaning of power reactor fuel in Europe and elsewhere in the international scene; especially the experience with crud at Paks Unit 2 and the event with chemical cleaning on April 10, 2003.
So, I would like to hear from the NRC regarding these matters.
Actually, a search on the NRC's ADAMS system reveals quite a bit about the event of April 10, 2003, at Paks Unit 2. Much of this was revealed via several FOIAs. Of course there is a lot more to the event than has been disclosed by our NRC, and even they may not have the vital details. It would be interesting to see a TRACE analysis of that event, but it is unlikely that we will ever see one.
But what is fantastic is that our NRC knows much more about the Paks event and the associated chemical cleaning equipment than it knows about ultrasonic fuel cleaning in the USA. Although ultrasonic fuel cleaning is a complex physical-chemical process that is performed inside the containment buildings of several of our power reactors, the NRC has never performed a safety analysis of the equipment, and it has not reviewed any such safety analyses by its licensees.
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