Monday, March 14, 2011
Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Safe?
Construction at Browns Ferry began in 1966 and was completed in 1977.
The three operating units at Browns Ferry are boiling water nuclear reactors. They make electricity by splitting uranium atoms to produce steam.
The steam is piped to turbines, which spin a generator to produce electricity.
In 1985, the facility was shutdown during a review of TVA's nuclear power program. Units 2 and 3 are currently operational.
Unit 1 was shutdown after a fire in the 1970's. The unit is now in the process of being upgraded so that it can be returned to service.
Fire started at the BFN on March 22, 1975, by a worker using a lit candle to check for air leaks. This risky action ignited a temporary polyurethane cable
penetration seal.
The fire quickly spread into the polyurethane seal and cables, causing significant damage to the cable spreading room and Unit 1 Reactor Building.
Officials at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant are paying close attention to what happens in Japan.
All U.S. nuclear plants are designed to withstand earthquakes.
The earthquake that hit Japan registered 8.9 magnitude. Browns Ferry is supposed to be able to withstand a 6.9 magnitude.
Officials say nothing higher than that has every been reported in this region.
DecaturDaily.com reported in December of last year while critical of past corporate oversight, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said TVA’s Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant had resolved its fire-safety issues .
The nuclear plant, 11 miles from Decatur, has been in a degraded safety status since late 2009. In a public hearing, NRC announced its two-week inspection in October indicated the plant had resolved all safety issues.
The Professional Reactor Operator Society, which early in 1981, Bob Meyer, a Prairie Island Nuclear Plant operator, earnestly began to think that it might be possible to form an organization that might help licensed operators present their viewpoint. Turning thought into action, the Professional Reactor Operator Society (PROS) was created to fulfill that purpose.
Since its inception PROS has been the independent voice of member operators across the country. PROS has been successful in helping the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) rethink the requirement of operator degree requirements, challenged the NRC on a proposed Sequestration Rule successfully in court, and presented the “in the trenches" perspective to the NRC on many other issues.
A report dated March 4, 2011 by PROS titled: NRC REPORT - Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant - Preliminary Greater Than Green Finding., appears to have found several issues at the plant however the finding was determined to be of very low safety significance.
Browns Ferry Plant is only 22 miles from the southern most point in Lawrence County and 38 miles from the Lawrenceburg Square.
By comparison and worst case scenario, the Chernobyl exclusion zone was established soon after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, in order to evacuate the local population and to prevent people from entering the heavily contaminated territory.
The area adjoining the site of the disaster was originally divided into 4 concentric zones. The fourth-most contaminated zone had a radius of 19 miles from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
The border of the zone was later adjusted to better parallel the locations of highest contamination.
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