Thursday, February 4, 2016

Upper head Injection UHI Report to congress

There is a lot in this blog about my discovery and disclosure of the UHI defects and the related impact on my career at EPRI and the defunct NSAC.  

Recently TVA has loaded fuel into its long delayed Watts Bar Unit 2.  It is an ice condenser plant that originally had UHI; however, that feature was discarded following my disclosures during 1984.

The following memo documents a conversation that EPRI had with Duke Power following my report that UHI was Ultra High Risk.  It reports that Duke did not consider UHI in its PRA after it determined that UHI, "... was not necessary for any LOCA."  That closed the case as far as NSAC was concerned.  However, Duke investigated its UHI system following the EPR I contact; serious defects were uncovered, and high level participants including NSAC were involved for several more years.  
























The following NRC report dated 1995 reveals a benign attitude at NRC;  that is, although  it admits that "... the effect of nitrogen in the reactor during a LOCA has not yet been analyzed ...", it then states that Sandia National Laboratory will be contracted to perform studies that, "... are expected to be available in about a year."


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