Word: nrc
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...recent accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania clearly demonstrates the combination of design flaws, technical mishaps, and human error that can cause a catastrcphic reactor accident. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the reactor's design was ineffective in containing radioactive water; safety and monitoring equipment failed to perform properly when called upon; plant operators apparently forgot to turn on important safety valves deactivated two weeks before the accident and twice turned off the reactor's emergency cooling system prematurely...
Plant and federal officials said the bubble is now a much safer size and the reactor's temperature has dropped significantly. Harold Denton, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) chief of operations said yesterday that only two out of 177 fuel cells in the reactor were still overheating...
...NRC also began actions yesterday to avoid future cooling system breakdowns in other nuclear plants around the country. The commission ordered officials at seven nuclear plants to explain their plans to prevent accidents similar to the one at Three Mile Island last Wednesday...
Turning off the five plants, which together produce about 4.1 million kw of electric power, reflects the NRC's caution in the present fevered climate of public debate about the nation's use of reactors to provide energy. The NRC has not suggested that the plants are unsafe. But engineers from Pennsylvania's Duquesne Light Co., which operates one of the plants, and the Boston firm of Stone and Webster, which designed all five, found a mathematical defect in the computer program used to design some of the plants' coolant pipes so that they would...
...enclosed in reinforced-concrete "containment vessels" capable of withstanding tremendous pressures from within. All reactors are equipped with automatic shut-off and multiple back-up systems so that any "loss of coolant" that could start a system on the slope toward a meltdown can be quickly corrected. The NRC maintains resident inspectors at many plants, makes unannounced inspections of others and, as last week's action demonstrates, is willing to shut down a plant for as long as necessary if there is even the slightest question of safety...