A report on the cause of generator failures at the Cook nuclear power plant isn’t expected for a couple of months following a Nuclear Regulatory Commission visit to the plant for a special inspection last week.
Cook Chief Nuclear Officer Shane Lies tells us the plant has two school bus-sized generators for each reactor, intended to run essential safety functions if the reactors ever need to be taken offline.
“If our operators get into an accident situation and we do not have power available from the grid, then those diesels are extremely important to the operators because they would power up all of our safety related equipment,” Lies said.
Only one of the generators is needed for essential safety functions, but the generators failed during routine monthly tests four times in the past two years. That prompted the NRC special inspection.
Lies says the Cook plant has replaced defective parts in the generators with refurbished parts, but it didn’t really solve the problem.
“In these particular cases, when we put in the refurbished component, it failed in relatively short order, and so then we had to replace it with a like part. So we have to understand what’s going on that is negatively impacting the quality of the parts that we’re getting back from the vendors.”
The NRC announced its special inspection last week. Lies says this is the first special inspection ever to take place at Cook. He tells us the plant staff are as committed to solving the issue as the NRC and they welcome the oversight.
The NRC’s report is due about 45 days after the inspection ends. Lies says the on-site portion of it is now over, but the NRC still have some digging to do.
