Five nuclear reactors are under special review

OREANDA-NEWS. March 10, 2015. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is maintaining special oversight at five existing nuclear reactors because of past safety violations, while 17 more reactors are under watch because of low-level safety concerns, according to the agency's latest annual assessment.

The assessment concluded that 77 out of 99 US nuclear reactors fully met all safety and security performance objectives, three units more than a year ago. One of the top performing units, Entergy's 605MW Vermont Yankee, started decomissioning last December.

The commission conducts additional inspections at 17 reactors because of past low-level violations. Xcel Energy's 600MW Monticello nuclear plant in Minnesota transitioned into that category this year after the agency reduced its oversight level there upon concluding the operator addressed safety concerns.

Omaha Public Power District's 478MW Fort Calhoun nuclear plant in Nebraska is under the highest level of regulatory scrutiny after a nearly three-year, problem-plagued refueling outage that ended in 2014.

Entergy's Arkansas Nuclear plant 836MW unit 1 and 987MW unit 2 are under the second highest scrutiny level, which entails several additional inspection and managerial involvement by US nuclear regulators to confirm that the operator is fixing previously identified safety concerns.

Entergy's 688MW Pilgrim plant in Massachusetts and NextEra Energy's 620MW Point Beach unit 1 in Wisconsin have been cited for degraded performance for concerns raised in 2014. The Pilgrim plant likely will draw additional scrutiny because a winter storm in late January knocked out almost every external source of supply, resulting in forced shutdown.