OpCo Spotlight
OpCo Spotlight: Exelon Nuclear Continues to Act on Fukushima Lessons Learned Nearly three years after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, Exelon and the U.S. nuclear industry continue to take action to prevent a similar event from happening at a U.S. nuclear facility. Lessons learned were captured by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in July 2011 in a set of prioritized recommended actions for enhancing U.S. reactor safety. Since 2011, Exelon has moved aggressively to put into place the NRC recommendations, some of which will take years to complete, and worked with the nuclear industry to develop innovative mitigation strategies called FLEX. FLEX addresses the main safety challenges that occurred at Fukushima — the loss of cooling capability and electrical power resulting from a severe natural event. The strategy is “flexible” in that it relies on portable equipment to protect against even the most unlikely events — events that go beyond the plant’s design basis. It focuses on cooling the reactor and spent fuel pool, and protecting containment integrity. FLEX is also site-specific and takes into account differences in plant designs and the most likely risks at each nuclear station. A flexible approach ensures that each plant can focus on planning for extreme events that have a greater probability of occurring locally. “Exelon has already implemented many of the FLEX strategies, including the purchase of additional safety equipment for the plants, the revision of site event response procedures, and broadened operator training, all to ensure our plants and our employees can respond properly during natural or manmade disasters,” said Jim Meister, Exelon Nuclear vice president, Operations Support.
More implementation work to be done in 2014 • E xelon will submit updated seismic hazard data to the NRC for all plants, based on present-day NRC design basis requirements. • Exelon will conduct flooding hazard re-evaluations for Braidwood, Byron, Clinton, LaSalle, Limerick, Oyster Creek, and Peach Bottom. Similar evaluations were conducted in 2012 for Dresden, Quad Cities and TMI. • By the fall of 2014, Byron Unit 2 will complete full implementation of FLEX strategies and spent fuel pool instrumentation, which monitors and reports water levels in the pool. All other units will follow in 2015 and 2016. Also in 2014, Exelon will begin developing plans for responding to NRC requirements to implement severe-accident-capable hardened vents at its boiling water reactor plants (except Clinton). There also will be a focus on emergency preparedness staffing and communication to ensure it is adequate to support FLEX. In relation to emergency preparedness, TMI will participate in a Regional Response Center (RRC) drill in the summer of 2014. The RRCs are located in Memphis, Tenn,. and Phoenix, Ariz., and will provide critical equipment that could be needed to maintain safety in the event of an extreme event at America’s nuclear facilities. During the exercise, the RRC in Memphis will deploy equipment to TMI to test its ability to get the equipment there within 24 hours. Communication is key Exelon and the nuclear industry have made great efforts to communicate with the public about what the industry has done and is doing to learn from Fukushima and assure them that U .S. nuclear facilities can and will continue to operate safely.
Exelon purchased portable diesel-powered pumps, like this one, and staged them at all of its nuclear facilities.
“It’s important that our neighbors, public officials, and community leaders remain as confident as we are about the safety of our plants,” Meister said. Public opinion surveys conducted by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), which showed a decline in public favorability of nuclear energy in the year following Fukushima, now show public favorability to be nearly where it was before Fukushima. The most recent NEI survey of the American public showed: • 69 percent favor nuclear energy • 70 percent give nuclear a high safety rating • 8 5 percent agree that the U.S. should renew licenses and build new nuclear plants • 8 2 percent believe nuclear energy will play an important role in meeting America’s future electricity needs Exelon and the nuclear industry have learned much from Fukushima. The work done to date has raised nuclear safety in the U.S. to its highest level ever. As an engaged, learning organization, Exelon will continue to look for new and better ways to make its operations even safer. by Bill Harris, Nuclear Communications
16 Inside Exelon | January · February 2014