Four reactors downrated; a fifth may go further

摘要

In late December and early January, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff increased its inspection scrutiny of five reactors and made official the change in status of four of them in the action matrix of the Reactor Oversight Process. Those four were moved from the lightest level of inspection-indicated by placement in the first column (Licensee Response) of the matrix-to the second-lightest. The same increase in inspection scrutiny is being applied to the fifth reactor, Entergy Nuclear's Palisades, an 805-MWe pressurized water reactor near South Haven, Mich., but other actions are pending that could mean even more stringent inspection, as well as a move to the third or fourth column of the matrix.