Nuke plant's forced temp shutdown

Entergy’s River Bend nuclear power plant near St. Francisville, La., north of Baton Rouge, was forced into a temporary emergency shutdown last weekend due to a technical issue, but was brought back online Sunday, officials said. 

The shutdown, called a “SCRAM,” saw control rods dropped into the plant’s reactor core to halt its nuclear reaction.

Before midnight Nov. 17, River Bend was raising power from 30% following a prior shutdown, according to Victor Dricks, spokesperson for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

“Control room operators noticed a problem" with the plant’s feedwater heating system, which preheats water before it is recirculated back into the reactor, he told NOLA.com.

Procedures required a manual shutdown. The control rods were fully inserted with no complications and on Nov. 18 the plant was shut down and Entergy was able to correct the feedwater issue and restart on Sunday. 

The emergency shutdown occurred six days after the NRC told Entergy officials that the River Bend plant will receive a notice of violation for failing to obtain an amendment to the reactor’s operating license. 

The NRC violation notice requires Entergy it to have a 30-day cooling capacity available in the event of a major accident. That 30-day capacity must be enough for the accident to be evaluated and corrective action to be taken. 

In March, testing during refueling of the reactor found that leakage in a standby system providing reactor cooling water was significant enough to render the heat sink system inoperable, in part because it would require additional water after 22 days.

There were no consequences to the reactor or to public health from either incident. 

An alternative supply is available to replenish water in the heat sink, but that option was never added to the plant’s license, NRC officials found Sept. 30. The issue does not represent an immediate safety threat, Dricks said. 

The inspection also identified another half-dozen issues that did not trigger violation citations. 

Edwin Kyman, a physicist with the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists that critique the nuclear industry, said the combination of the shutdown and multiple near-violations is worrisome. 

“Overall, this is not a good inspection report."  

Lyman pointed out that River Bend already is listed in the NRC’s “regulatory response” column, which requires additional inspections and reviews by the agency due to past problems.

River Bend is one of only seven on that list, out of the 93 reactors operating nationwide. (NOLA.com 11/21/23) Nuclear plant in Louisiana required emergency shutdown | Business News | nola.com