The US nuclear-power industry is ill-prepared for Y2K, which could disrupt the delivery of electricity needed to cool reactors and avoid meltdowns, experts warned Monday.
The warning came amid concern that the nuclear sector may not be as far along as other US industries in preparing its computerized operations for the turn of the century.
US Representative Edward Markey said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission needed to be more aggressive in dealing with the computer problem's potential effect on the nation's electricity grid and its nuclear-power-plant infrastructure.
"The NRC needs to ensure that reliable backup power sources will be available for all of the reactors that are operating when the millennium arrives," the Massachusetts Democrat told a congressional symposium on Y2K nuclear threats.
The millennium problem arises because many older computers record dates using only the last two digits of the year. If left uncorrected, such systems could treat the year 2000 as 1900, generating errors or system crashes next 1 January.
Normally, reactors are connected to the larger electrical grid, which brings in the necessary power for cooling. The NRC requires every reactor to have on site at least two diesel-powered generators to provide emergency power in case of failure.
But some experts at the symposium questioned the reliability of the backup generators in the face of Y2K-induced power shortages.
"It is imperative that this issue is addressed at this very critical time frame," Paul Gunter, director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service's Reactor Watchdog Project, told reporters at a news conference.
He added that the NRC should be more stringent in setting Y2K standards, especially in light of a November audit of the Seabrook, New Hampshire, reactor, which found 12 safety-related systems affected by the Y2K bug.
"They have to draw a line of nuclear safety and shut down any plant that crosses the line," Gunter said.
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However, Steven Unglesbee, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, said nuclear-power plants have been working with the NRC on a standard industry approach to potential Y2K problems for the past three years. Plants have multiple safety systems, in addition to the diesel generators, and reactor controls respond to conditions within the reactor itself that have nothing to do with the computer, Unglesbee said.
"We're confident that the power plants will enter the next century generating electricity at the same safe levels they do today," he said. "When the clock strikes midnight, they will be as safe as they are now."
Western analysts have been more concerned about Russia's nuclear plants, which have lagged behind the United States in Y2K preparations. Last week, an independent Ukraine power expert said that all five of the Ukraine's aging nuclear-power plants could be paralyzed when the clock ticks into the next century.
The world's worst nuclear accident occurred in 1986 when Ukraine's Chernobyl plant exploded, spewing a cloud of radioactive dust over Russia and parts of Western Europe.
Copyright© 1999 Reuters Limited.
