NRC issues new rules for buried cables

Image via WikipediaBRATTLEBORO -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced new rules Tuesday regarding submerged cables at all nuclear plants.
Based on a recent review, the NRC staff identified 269 cable failures at nuclear facilities across the country, including 65 sites and 104 reactor units, Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the NRC wrote in an e-mail.
NRC staff stated that cable failures have a variety of causes, including manufacturing defects, damage caused by shipping and installation and exposure to electrical transients or abnormal environmental conditions during operation.
The likelihood of failure from any of these factors increases over time as the cable insulation degrades and/or is exposed to water, the document states.
"The submerged electrical cable issue is not that the cables fail immediately, it’s that the moisture causes the cable insulation to degrade faster than expected, leading to shorter service lifetime," director of nuclear safety project for the Union of Concerned Scientist, David Lochbaum wrote in an e-mail.
The NRC notes that, "These failure data indicated an increasing trend in underground cable failures and the predominant contributing factor was submergence or moisture intrusion that degraded the insulation."
Vermont Yankee is one of the plants to experience cable submergence, Sheehan wrote. More athttp://www.reformer.com/ci_16803140?source=most_viewed