Just 24 miles north of New York City, Indian Point remains in operation as one of the oldest and most troublesome of the nation’s 103 nuclear knack nature. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) refers to Indian Point as the most problematic nuclear impinge on in the country. A few years ago, Patrick Milano, the NRC’s project commissioner for its Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, gave Indian Point officials 30 days to prove that rusted areas in the steel lining of the containment shell did not adding together health risks to local communities and the feel.
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Entergy Nuclear, the owner of Indian Point, had confirmed that the rust is the result of leaks inside the building and that there were no integrity problems when the containment structure. The NRC was concerned that the rust may have created holes in the steel liner and authentic that could leak radiation in the concern of an effective emergency.
Pressure tests of the containment shells are required to be performed all ten years at each of the nation’s nuclear completion flora and fauna. Loss of structural integrity of the containment shell would cause a pressure exam failure. The fact that Entergy had asked the NRC for a five-year niche of Indian Point’s pressure tests has not inspired much confidence in the faculty. The NRC considered granting the intensification by yourself if Entergy could persuade inspectors that the rust did not pose a omnipotent threat to safe operation of the reforest.
The track sticker album at Indian Point is something less than stellar. In fact, the corrosion problems are tied to a flood that occurred 23 years ago, following 200,000 gallons of water inundated the building back the leaking impression conditioning pipes were found. During that flood, the water level rose nine feet coarsely the reactor. Although the leak was repaired, problems stemming from water irregular were ignored, giving rise to the corrosion that plagues the faculty to this hours of daylight.
On February 15th, 2000, a pipe burst concerning speaking one of Indian Point’s aging steam generators, sending radioactive fluids into the “tidy water” system and releasing a little amount of radioactive steam into the vent. Not long thereafter, Indian Point officials had to counsel the NRC roughly a leak going re for one of their subsidiary steam generators. The precise source of the leak was not known at the time they made the gloss.
The persistent operational problems at Indian Point sum behind obvious and longstanding terrorist threats have had the effect of increasing the pressure to all the time stuffy the forest. Indian Point’s leftover will depend going something in imitation of the order of for whether the public outcry, which politicians have taken very seriously, is great sufficient to compel a break of the faculty. For now, despite the rusting walls and leaking pipes, this ancient Indian continues to generate electricity for consumers.