Platts - Friday, August 15, 2003 http://www.platts.com ------------ Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)--14Aug2003 Power outage affects U.S., Canadian reactors At least nine U.S. and eight Canadian reactors scrammed Aug. 14 after an eastern power grid became overloaded, causing blackouts from the Northeast into Midwest and Canada. The regional outage caused a loss of off-site power at Indian Point-2 and -3, Fermi-2, Perry, Oyster Creek, Nine Mile Point-1 and -2, FitzPatrick, and Ginna, NRC and industry officials said. In Canada, the Pickering and Darlington units were affected. NRC was monitoring the situation at its Headquarters Operations Center. All nuclear plants affected by the grid overload, which struck a little after 4 p.m., were said to be in stable condition. ------------ Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)--14Aug2003 Degradation found at STP may affect other PWRs Other PWRs may be susceptible to the same type of degradation found at South Texas Project-1 (STP), NRC said in an information notice released Aug. 13. No requirements were imposed, but the notice urges other PWRs to review the history of STP's findings during a spring refueling. Based on samples of boron deposits discovered on bottom-mounted instrumentation nozzles, STP believes the leakage came from reactor coolant system water, which escaped through two bottom head penetrations. The penetration cracking is believed to be the result of manufacturing welding flaws that weakened the nozzle/weld material over time, according to STP, which plans to deliver its final root cause report to NRC in October. Meanwhile, NRC says other licensees could learn from STP's experience. "The NRC staff is in the process of evaluating what information regarding PWR RPV [reactor pressure vessel] lower head penetrations may be needed for licensees to demonstrate that reactor coolant pressure boundary integrity is maintained at each facility," the notice said. ------------ Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)--13Aug2003 NRC'S NMSS more cautious in applying risk guidelines NRC'S NMSS is adopting a more cautious approach to developing and applying risk guidelines to its diverse number of material licensees. At a meeting Aug. 13, Office of Nuclear Materials Safety & Safeguards (NMSS) Director Martin Virgilio said that the risk guidelines under development are still "very preliminary." He said NMSS wants to "fully understand the implications" of applying those guidelines in the material areas. He said NMSS would be providing the commission in spring 2004 with a paper listing policy issues, options, and recommendations in this area. Public workshops will be held after the staff gets feedback from the commission, he added. ------------ Paris (Nuclear News Flashes)--13Aug2003 EDF allowed to raise river temperatures A French government order is allowing EDF to raise river temperatures as much as 3 degrees C downstream of nuclear reactors at eight sites. The order, published Aug. 13, extends the temporary permission for hotter plant thermal effluents to two sites not mentioned by nuclear safety officials at a press conference Aug. 11, Cattenom and Blayais. It also allows a temperature increase three times higher for some sites than the "around 1 degree" that officials said EDF had requested in order to keep plants on line despite an ongoing heat wave and low river levels. The order concerns all plants, both nuclear and fossil-fired, on the Rhone, Garonne, Seine, and Moselle Rivers. For nuclear, 24 PWRs are affected. Producers are allowed to heat the waterways by 3 degrees at plants not "completely equipped" with cooling towers. For EDF's nuclear fleet, that means four units at Tricastin and two each at Saint Alban, Bugey and Blayais. Greenpeace denounced the unexpectedly sweeping order, saying it "perverted" the principle of maximum thermal effluent temperatures because it was based on temperature changes, not absolute values. ------------