INPO

[dirac]

Last 5 major industry events are from INPO 1 plants. How was Davis Besse allowed to happen and then again with their new head? Is INPO stacked with employees from major fleet plants? Have they lost their ability to be unbiased? Who polices the police?

[HydroDave63]

Last 5 major industry events are from INPO 1 plants. How was Davis Besse allowed to happen and then again with their new head? Is INPO stacked with employees from major fleet plants? Have they lost their ability to be unbiased? Who polices the police?

So, I'm confused...you're mad because INPO didn't psychically sense that the CRD nozzles had issues (those cracks were found during inspections, not a boric acid snowman) , or are you concerned that as senior people having been in major utilities that there is ring-clinking going on, or that they don't hand out enough INPO 4s?

[JohnK87]

INPO is primarily focused on lagging indicators of performance, and efforts to focus more on human performance/safety/culture are not as predictive.  The industry overall still has a "jump on pile" mentality where if something bad happens, you start looking for reasons why you can make them a 3 or 4.

My biggest problem with them is that they don't take a strong enough line on declining plants, which then allows utility management to think they can fix the problems without really having to go after them.  "We'll just change out a few managers and talk about improving performance" doesn't cut it.

[Rennhack]

1.  Who has the best head?

Be careful how you answer that.

[redline]

I have a different isssue with INPO.

With their constant effort to improve our performance, INPO continues to come with new ways to do things better that really offer no added value.

There's an old saying, if it broke....

I get very tired of fixing things that aint broke just because some yeahoo somewhere else thinks it's good idea even though we've had no problem with what we've been doing all along.

Get back to basics and quit ruinin' my day

[MeterSwangin]

I have a different isssue with INPO.

I get very tired of fixing things that aint broke just because some yeahoo somewhere else thinks it's good idea even though we've had no problem with what we've been doing all along.

Get back to basics and quit ruinin' my day

Amen, Brother!

You think you understand the regs and standards.  What the best plants and biggest fleets are doing.  Then a new INPO face swings by and declares "well, what I am used to seein is....."

Bingo.  Instant change in standards.  You get a PD or AFI.  B.S.

[dirac]

My point exactly. You dont place keep exactly the same way that some other plant does or you paperwork doesn't look the same and your INPO  3o r 4. However we got INPO 1 plants out there with operators unaware their rods whave been withdrawing for a minute. Can INPO not see the forest for the trees?

[UncaBuffalo]

I'll start out by saying I like INPO better now than I did 10 years ago.  It used to be a dumping ground for all the deadwood that plants needed to move out of managerial positions...now it seems to have a much larger contingent of motivated & competent individuals.



BUT, I do have my pet peeve with them...using personnel contaminations as a metric.  What started out as a harmless number that looked like it would be easy to track has turned into a nightmare for the plants & industry.

1.  Plants are going back to the bad-old-days way of doing Radiation Protection...respirators, plastics, OREX 'Ultra',...anything to stop a PerCon.  So we are back to killing the worker with heat stress to avoid a little contamination.  BAD science.  Isn't that what the whole 'TEDE ALARA' thing was aimed at?  We had proven that we were over-using respirators to avoid internal contamination (at the cost of injuries & fatalies due to the stress caused by said respirator), so the NRC made a new law that we had to use engineering controls, etc in lieu of respirators in most situations.  Now we are back to 'Perception-Trumping-Science' RadCon again.

2.  And, now that all the plants are tying their bonuses to the INPO metrics, some plants are starting to turn a blind eye to PerCons.  Whenever pressure to meet a goal (and save a bonus), causes technicians or supervisors to chose malpractice over procedural compliance, it is a very bad thing.  It's easy to rationalize that first babystep to the dark-side...we can all see that 100ccpm on a shoe wasn't a huge dose to the worker that needs to be captured.  BUT, once you start to rationalize small violations, it is way too easy for things to snowball & soon you have wholesale malpractice.

2a.  And, if some of the plants are radioing their PerCon numbers, that skews the averages & goals for the sites that are actually following the rules, so...?

[JsonD13]

UncaBuffalo,
   I totally agree.  Dose is dose, if you get a lil spot of dirt on your arm or head or pants that is only 100ncpm it shouldnt matter.  >10nCi uptake?  Well what isotope was it so we can assign dose if needed.

I think where the plants get into trouble is defining their PerCon (and there are many, varying definitions used by plants out there, which may explain your radioing comment).  I think it should be a PerCon if the worker recieved 1 mrem or greater.  Clean em up otherwise so you dont let the small stuff out, but only count the contamination against  you if your dosing them up.

But thinking that way isnt ALARA to some people ;-)

Jason

[dirac]

So, I'm confused...you're mad because INPO didn't psychically sense that the CRD nozzles had issues (those cracks were found during inspections, not a boric acid snowman) , or are you concerned that as senior people having been in major utilities that there is ring-clinking going on, or that they don't hand out enough INPO 4s?

Its not that they cpuldn't sense it. My understanding was they committed to a NEW head and instead turned around and got one form the scrap yards. You would think independent oversight orgs (and the NRC btw) would have caught on to this early on and raised the flag - they were probably too busy reviewing uniform and safety shoe policies.

I am also concerned about ring clinking. We all know utilities send there folks to INPO. What happens when the majoity come from someone like Enetrgy. How willing are they going to be throwing  around INPO 3 and 4s and get all their buddies, and more importantly their bosses, fired. Maybe we should heed our countries founders and have equal representation - two per site or company - no matter how many units.

[HydroDave63]

One can always apply and try to get in there and make a difference!

http://www.inpo.info/careers/SrEvaluator.htm

[HeatherB.]

Davis Besse didn't get a reactor head from the scrap yard... let's not be melodramatic.

"After the 2002 incident, Davis-Besse purchased a used replacement head from a decommissioned reactor in Midland, Michigan. Davis-Besse operators replaced the original cracked reactor head before restarting in 2004."

It was previously used, but certainly not unusuable/scrap/crap etc. etc. And they'll have a brand new one soon enough. That DB crew up there is a solid bunch, and they are some of the best co-workers a contract RP could hope for.

[dirac]

Didn't they committ to a new head for replacement originally?

[RDTroja]

Davis Besse didn't get a reactor head from the scrap yard... let's not be melodramatic.

"After the 2002 incident, Davis-Besse purchased a used replacement head from a decommissioned reactor in Midland, Michigan. Davis-Besse operators replaced the original cracked reactor head before restarting in 2004."

It was previously used, but certainly not unusuable/scrap/crap etc. etc. And they'll have a brand new one soon enough. That DB crew up there is a solid bunch, and they are some of the best co-workers a contract RP could hope for.

Even calling it a 'used head' falls into the category of melodramatic. Midland was never run... I am pretty sure it wasn't even fueled. So calling it a 'Used head from a decommissioned reactor' is pure negative propaganda.

[Laundry Man]

Never fueled, but the domes still sit there looking pretty.  What a shame, very nice area.
LM

[bsdnuke]

After working in RP outside of nuclear plants for 15 years I recently worked at Ginna for about eight months and found a lot had changed positively in the external dose control area and the plant was pretty clean at least until they went into the RFO.  I never cared for INPO strong arm tactics on things I disagreed with such as the percon bean count and agree that it is anti alara to bag a worker in the type of PCs to a degree that the heat stress was way more significant than a pinprick of a skin dose potential from ~100ccpm.  I am sure that we can identify statistical improvements in operations and maintenance and maybe INPO or better N plant managers effected that.  we may never be sure but the bottom line is that plants are operating with higher capacity factors and apparently better managed maintenance (maybe, I am an HP not a mechanic).

I was disappointed that the plants had to be forced by EPRI into an alpha program and at that, not apparently well implemented.  Kind of like keeping your head in the sand and not wanting to admit that they are there and all that.  The industry has had alpha issues from day 1 when fuel was really bad, then the fuel was improved and not much alpha issues but with extended cores and RFOs going from 12/18 months to 18/24 months and higher output, the alpha will be a greater issue for all plants.  It always was about external dose unless someone got a snootful but now it is more subtle.

We are still playing games with free release and survey methods that have not really come to grips with unusual decay modes and surface efficiency (D&D folks are more likely to understand here).  RPs are put under pressure to get high value equipment out of the RCA and the pressure may not help objective assessment of results.  I understand that the larger "fleets" may have the ability to share the high value equipment and instead of free release it is transfer between licensees which eliminates the pressure but may not mean it is a better program, just more flexibility.

I agree that the new INPO person that comes in with their opinions about how to resolve their pet issues do not serve the industry well and INPO should become more objective and less subjective.

INPO should be kept because the industry may not police itself well.  They need to admit to not always having the answer and instead of handing out all those wallet cards, pronouncements of guiding principles, yadda, yadda yadda, become a real resource.  Maybe, like the AEC, it needs to be split into the helper bees and the enforcers.

Comments?

[Rennhack]

... but with extended cores and RFOs going from 12/18 months to 18/24 months and higher output, the alpha will be a greater issue for all plants.

Please explain this statement. 

1. How do longer fuel cycles equate to a 'greater alpha issue'?
2. How does higher output from steam system and turbine mods equate to a 'greater alpha issue'?
3. How does a core replacement equate to a 'greater alpha issue'?

[HydroDave63]

Please explain this statement. 

1. How do longer fuel cycles equate to a 'greater alpha issue'?
2. How does higher output from steam system and turbine mods equate to a 'greater alpha issue'?
3. How does a core replacement equate to a 'greater alpha issue'?

just a swag here...

1. longer fuel cycle = longer duration of neutron and heat flux = higher chance of cladding cracking

2. Higher MWe = Higher MWthermal = greater heat flux through cladding see #1

3. moving core around = mechanical agitation + #1 = more alphas in the vessel

[OldHP]

Ok!     Are we going to drop back 30+ years to when a young Region 1 inspector caused a clamor and forced all R-1 plants to by an Alpha Spec system.  Even with major failed fuel the precautions taken for the increased (and changed Beta profile) are more than sufficient to protect the workers from the Alpha emitter increase.  We are talking Power Plants - NOT National Labs where they were working with pure Alpha and only monitoring for Beta-Gamma.

[Marlin]

Ok!    Are we going to drop back 30+ years to when a young Region 1 inspector caused a clamor and forced all R-1 plants to by an Alpha Spec system.  Even with major failed fuel the precautions taken for the increased (and changed Beta profile) are more than sufficient to protect the workers from the Alpha emitter increase.  We are talking Power Plants - NOT National Labs where they were working with pure Alpha and only monitoring for Beta-Gamma.

Hmmm... there were plants denying that they had problems with failed fuel or had any alpha. Segregation of areas with fuel fragments and activation products was not very good. One plant of that era even claimed they had no beta radiation. I think if I were a regulator in that situation I might want to see an upgrade in detection equipment and attitude toward personnel and environmental protection. I did most of my time as a road tech in Region One plants in the 70s and 80s, there were some very good ones and then....remember piggyback beta?

[RDTroja]

Hmmm... there were plants denying that they had problems with failed fuel or had any alpha. Segregation of areas with fuel fragments and activation products was not very good. One plant of that era even claimed they had no beta radiation. I think if I were a regulator in that situation I might want to see an upgrade in detection equipment and attitude toward personnel and environmental protection. I did most of time as a road tech in Region One plants in the 70s and 80s, there were some very good ones and then....remember piggyback beta?

Yikes. 1979 a midatlantic CE plant. Found alpha on a smear on the refuel floor. Them: 'Can't BE! Its, its, its... Piggyback Beta!' Me: 'Got a calibrated absorber set?' Them: 'Well, yeah, we do.' Me: 'OK, here is the energy graph -- its alpha!' Them: '(mumble, mumble)' Me: 'Don't worry, though. It came off the PaRR Machine that just got here from (midatlantic BWR with known problems)'

Maybe I should have told them that part first, I don't know... 

[HydroDave63]

On-topic: INPO must be broke, because they are mean to Region IV coastal plants 

[spentfuel]

The midland head was never used rumor I heard that duke looked at buying it for Oconee until they made the decision to replace all three heads.  Part of the logic was it was available right away and was cheaper than a new head.  The issue for DB now is its the same kind of head "wet" that has the same issue with pwscc which is what causes the crdm penetration cracks in the first place.  The assumption they made was perhaps it was in better shape than the one they replaced.  I do know for example at Oconee one unit was in far worse shape than the other two so there seems to be some variation in each head.

Who has the best head the westinghouse or ce plants that have a "dry" head.

Have to go with Rennhack on the alpha comment

Longer hotter runs don't make it worse unless you have failed fuel issues to start off with.  They don't actually run any hotter btw they just uprate because of more accurate instrumentation that measures thermal output  so when you get better numbers of your power rating it makes it appear they run hotter.

my two cents

sf

[Contract SRO]

They don't actually run any hotter btw they just uprate because of more accurate instrumentation that measures thermal output  so when you get better numbers of your power rating it makes it appear they run hotter.

my two cents

sf

Tavg does not run hotter but the fuel centerline temperature definitely runs hotter.

[MacGyver]

Last 5 major industry events are from INPO 1 plants. How was Davis Besse allowed to happen and then again with their new head? Is INPO stacked with employees from major fleet plants? Have they lost their ability to be unbiased? Who polices the police?

This guy:

Seriously
The NRC is the POLICE the last time I checked.

I am just saying .....











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