Tmi Reactor Cited For Possible Safety Problems

April 06, 1993|by JENNIFER BABSON, States News Service

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has cited a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island as one of 15 sites around the nation whose reactor vessels have been weakened be repeated exposure to radiation and need further testing to determine if they are safe.

NRC regulators recently found that TMI reactor number one failed to meet agency criteria for the toughness and durability of it's steel nuclear reactor vessels, which are designed to wall-in the core of the plant's nuclear reactor.

The next round of testing for the 15 plants is being conducted by a consortium of nuclear industry and owners groups as part of an NRC effort to identify reactors that may have become `embrittled' through the years.

Decades of bombardment by subatomic particles called neutrons, which sustain the chain reaction in the reactor cores, causes reactors to become `embrittled.'

TMI is not expected to submit the results of its own tests until later this year. The NRC is then expected to review the results and issue a final report on the 15 sites before the end of this year.

"We are confident that the reactor will retain its durability for its currently planned operating lifetime," said Doug Bedell, a spokesman for GPU Nuclear, owners of Three Mile Island.

Bedell said TMI's reactor vessels were designed to remain in safe, working condition until about the year 2016.

"This whole embrittlement question is not a new issue," he added. "It's something we've been monitoring for some time."

TMI officials maintain that even if the reactor vessel isn't up to NRC regulations an array of additional precautions adequately insure the safety of the facilities. Among these is a four-foot-thick concrete wall which surrounds the building containing the reactor vessels, Bedell said.

Nuclear industry critics such like Robert Pollard, an engineer with The Union of Concerned Scientists, an industry watchdog group, argue such precautions are not enough.

"Today the NRC has neither a legally valid or technically valid basis for letting these plants run," Pollard said. "If the reactor vessel breaks, the only protection left is the emergency evacuation plan."

NRC spokesman John Kopek said he feels confident most of the vessels will survive the second round of testing.

"The NRC staff believes that these plants will meet these requirements, and if for some reason they don't, there are ways they can continue to operate safely."

According to Kopek, such plants could continue operating by moving the radioactive fuel to other locations and by lowering the amount of fuel contained in the reactors.

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