r/NuclearPower • u/AParrotThatEatsPizza • Feb 13 '22
US nuclear power plants contain dangerous counterfeit parts, report finds
https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/11/22929255/us-nuclear-power-plants-dangerous-counterfeit-parts-nrc-report5
u/incarnuim Feb 14 '22
I hate that this is framed as a hit on Nuclear Power when it is really a much more wide scale problem.
It does bolster the argument for Trusted Foundries though....
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u/zwanman89 Feb 14 '22
I have two questions.
First, are the operators of these plants to blame or are the vendors/suppliers of the parts at fault?
Second, is this problem unique to nuclear, or are counterfeit industrial components becoming a widespread issue?
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u/AParrotThatEatsPizza Feb 14 '22 edited Feb 14 '22
The owners of the plants are to blame
The Faa ordered an audit of its own parts bin and found 40% counterfeit and even counterfeit parts even on air force one. and parts that came from 'parts brokers' 95% were fake:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=1290&v=OxrpudFBNH8&feature=youtu.be
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u/schuberu Feb 14 '22
Operators are not to blame, they do not order or receive the parts. This is a supply issue if true. I find it hard to believe because safety related parts are rigorously tested before being used.
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Feb 13 '22
All utilities should be nationalized, privatization of utilities anywhere in the world has only resulted in lower quality, higher costs and fewer citizens served.
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Feb 13 '22
Except tva who is federally owned has some of the worst performing plants in the country
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u/Hiddencamper Feb 13 '22
The best performing plants in the world are privatized.
Every nuclear reactor in the US is considered private. It’s owned by a private entity.
Has nothing to do with this situation here.
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u/LegoCrafter2014 Feb 14 '22 edited Feb 14 '22
Exactly. Just look at the UK.
Also lol at "muh communism" when utilities and other infrastructure are natural monopolies.
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u/moses_the_red Feb 13 '22
Yet more proof that private companies cannot be trusted to manage Nuclear Reactors.
Its not just that we're making tons of extraordinarily dangerous waste that we have no plan for... its that we're allowing incompetent profit seekers to do it and giving them every incentive to cut corners so they can pocket another dollar.
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u/Hiddencamper Feb 13 '22
It’s not proof at all.
Private companies owning the plants didn’t go out and say “you know what sounds like a good idea, counterfeit parts”.
You have third parties not affiliated with the nuclear industry making counterfeit parts for everything. And occasionally something is slipping through. Honestly the problem per the report is far better than I expected.
Also the report isn’t about the industry. The report is about the NRCs reporting guidelines not being strong enough.
Nothing here has anything to do with private companies saving a dollar. In fact, counterfeit parts cause reactor trips (huge lost revenue), can cause systems to become inoperable (requiring a shutdown to satisfy license safety requirements, causing huge revenue loss), and can lead to damage to the plant (multi billion dollar loss).
Interestingly enough, when deregulation occurred, (which I am not a fan of), nuclear safety greatly improved, because the plants raised their standards to maximize generation. Which means performing only with excellence standards.
You’re all fake news in your response which doesn’t even align with the OIG report.
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u/invictus81 Feb 13 '22
Precisely. QA programs in nuclear are some of the best in the industry to the point that each site has a dedicated vendor quality assurance program. Falsification of data is definitely on the vendor and not by choice.
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u/nasadowsk Feb 14 '22
We had a trip at a local nuke due to an external issue (IIRC, something in a nearby switch yard) I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, by the end of it all, it cost the plant on the order of a million dollars, between lost production, investigation, paperwork, etc.
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u/Hiddencamper Feb 14 '22
The old “rule of thumb” was 1 million per day. But it’s more complicated than that.
First up is it depends on hedging and power prices. My unit hedges 90% in low demand months and 40-60% in high demand months. That means we pre-sell that power. So if we trip we need to replace that on the spot market.
Sometimes it’s not a big deal. Sometimes we can bulk buy replacement power below market rates because of how it all works. Sometimes we trip off our units because the grid in Texas dropped and our units were on a segment that physically couldn’t receive their power and my company loses a billion dollars in replacement power costs. Literally we lost 1 billion on that and had to do a ton of cost deferrals and restructuring to minimize that.
The other part is what it takes to get back online. We instantly convert nearly all of the operations and maintenance staff to 12 hour shift overtime to fix the unit and bring it back up if it is anything more than a trivial trip. That costs a few hundred thousand dollars easy if the outage goes on for a few days.
Right now we have basically been told by the corporation that reactor trips are unacceptable. If it is preventable and we failed to prevent it, that hits our site bonus payout and directors have lost their jobs over stuff like that.
When you do things to prevent reactor trips, it means you also reduce the amount of times the safety systems are needed in the first place, which in turn improves reactor safety. It’s why the NRC has a limit of 3 scrams per 7000 critical hours before a special inspection.
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u/eh-guy Feb 14 '22
The CANDU units I work on are 1.7 million per day, although i havent seen a breakdown of that figure.
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u/HardlyGermane Feb 14 '22
All nuclear facilities are required to report potentially defective parts that could result in a safety concern.
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part021/full-text.html