Nuclear Plant Inspections Facing Cutbacks
Well, this is certainly concerning. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is pushing to reduce the frequency and scope of nuclear plant inspections across the U.S. Although the NRC recommendation, at the time of this writing, still requires various approvals, the very notion of it establishes a troubling precedent. While the recommendation will help reduce regulatory angst and costs for plant operators, I’m concerned that overall safety could be compromised.
Details of the NRC’s Recommendation to Reduce Nuclear Plant Inspections
President Trump has been pushing to reduce industry regulation in general, which has prompted various government entities to develop recommendations to accomplish this goal. As such, the NRC launched a year-long series of industry consultations and public meetings to discuss options prior to making its inspection recommendation in July 2019.
The NRC specifically recommends decreasing the frequency of nuclear plant inspections from every other year to once every three years. Another recommendation is to remove minor safety violations from nuclear power operators’ records after a year of successful mitigation.
The big problem with these moves is that safety issues will be more difficult to detect or might be detected too late. And the timing of the NRC recommendation is poor – most nuclear plants in the U.S. were built in the 1960s and 1970s and are approaching the end of their 40- to 50-year operating lives. Older plants are more likely to have malfunctions, and in theory need more frequent inspections, not fewer ones.
Aside from the reduced number of nuclear plant inspections, another concern relates to the proposed softening of plant operator violation records. Since the proposal is for minor violations to be removed from records after one year of successful mitigation, it will be more difficult to identify patterns over time that might be indicative of a future emergency.
As of the time of this writing, no timetable has been set to get the approvals necessary to move forward with the recommendations around reduced nuclear plant inspections and softer violation recording. Let’s hope they never happen.
