On December 27, Holtec International, which makes storage casks for high level radioactive waste, was surprised to learn that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was bringing enforcement action against the firm. In an unusual move, the NRC filed a complaint against Holtec for neglecting to conduct a written evaluation prior to installing a new bolt design system for inside its radioactive waste casks. Holtec challenged the enforcement action and at a January 9 hearing before the NRC, its president Krishna Singh described the issue as “Much ado about nothing.” The firm’s cask specifications, originally approved by the NRC, state that the bolts are “required for cooling of the system to prevent [waste] fuel damage and to prevent the [waste] from going critical” (an uncontrolled nuclear reaction), said Donna Gilmore of San Onofre Safety. As a result of the flawed design that was later approved by the NRC, bolts inside as many as 51 casks have bent or fallen off. The exact number is unknown, since the interior of a loaded cask cannot be inspected, according to the NRC. The Brattleboro Reformer reported that similar Holtec casks are being used to store radioactive waste at reactor sites in California, Vermont, Illinois, Mississippi, Georgia, Washington, Tennessee, and Missouri. Despite the generally permissive relationship between the regulatory agency and Holtec, they also threatened to bring additional unnamed charges. A final decision regarding the complaint and further enforcement actions will take up to 60 days.
—Brattleboro Reformer, Jan. 15, 2019 & Dec. 27, 2018; San Onofre Safety press release, Jan. 9, 2019; Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Oct. 11, 2018
There’s an NRC meeting with Holtec on April 10th, 2019 for another Holtec design problem. The walls of every thin-wall Holtec canister is gouged by the poorly designed Holtec canister downloading system. The system lacks engineering precision, resulting in unavoidable scraping of canister walls against a steel guide ring inside the storage holes. Southern California Edison admitted the damage occurs the entire length of the canister walls.
Once even microscopic cracks start in these thin-wall (only 5/8″ thick) stainless steel pressure vessels, they can continue to grow through the wall in 16 years according to the NRC. In hotter canisters, such as those at San Onofre, every 10 degree increase in temperature doubles the crack growth rate.
Edison admits each canister holds at least as much highly lethal radioactivity as released from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Thank you Donna for the information about the canisters and the meeting. For more info about the gouges in canisters see: https://sanonofresafety.org/2019/01/09/nrc-ignores-holtec-design-problem-that-gouges-walls-of-all-san-onofre-nuclear-waste-canisters/.
Where can people find more inforamtion about the meeting if they would like to participate?