River Bend Nuclear Station in Louisiana: Scram Due to Low Reactor Water Level; Still at Zero Power

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BWR, Containment Spray Mode, cooling, corruption, Defense in depth, Entergy, Fallout zone, feed water pumps, feedwater line, head spray nozzle, LOCA, loss of coolant accident, loss of cooling, nuclear accident, nuclear disaster, nuclear energy, nuclear meltdown, nuclear power, nuclear reactor cooling, nuclear reactors, RCIC, reactor core isolation cooling, Reactor scram, reactor vessel head spray nozzle, Regulation, residual heat removal, RHR, River Bend, River Bend Nuclear Power Station, US NRC, Vessel head spray, water

Any loss of cooling water is a “near miss”. Some are just closer than others. Why do these “events” always happen on weekends? Lucky the workers appear to have been sober, and reacted quickly.
“Notification Date: 06/01/2019
Notification Time: 03:15 [ET]
Event Date: 05/31/2019
Event Time: 23:45 [CDT]
Last Update Date: 06/01/2019
MANUAL REACTOR SCRAM DUE TO LOW REACTOR WATER LEVEL

“At 2345 CDT at River Bend Station (RBS) Unit 1, a manual Reactor scram was inserted in anticipation of receiving an automatic Reactor Water Level 3 (9.7”) scram due to the isolation of the ‘B’ Heater String with the ‘A’ Heater String already isolated. The ‘B’ heater string isolation caused loss of suction and subsequent trip of the running Feed Water Pumps ‘A’ and ‘C’. All control rods fully inserted with no issues.

Subsequently Reactor level was controlled by the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) system. Feed Water Pump ‘C’ was restored 4 minutes after the initial trip and the RCIC system secured. Currently RBS-1 is stable and is being cooled down using Turbine Bypass Valves.

“No radiological releases have occurred due to this event from the unit.”

The plant is currently under a normal shutdown electrical lineup.

The licensee notified the NRC Resident Inspector.” https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2019/20190603en.html

River Bend appears to have been having issues before this scram, as it wasn’t at full power. It has been at zero power since this last “event”: https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/reactor-status/2019/2019PowerStatus.txt

Severe weather in the area on May 19, 2019: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/archive/event.php?date=20190519

https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/lightening-scrammed-nuclear-reactor-lost-cooling-off-for-weeks-on-again-now-off-usnrc-inspection/
https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2018/06/19/entergy-river-bend-nuclear-want-to-move-reactor-cooling-core-injection-point-from-the-reactor-head-spray-nozzle-remove-some-oversight-from-nrc-comment-by-thurs-11-59-pm-request-hearing-by-july-23r/
https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2016/05/13/defective-us-nuclear-breakers-by-schneider-electric-of-france-schneider-appears-involved-in-french-nuclear-parts-scandal-as-original-owner-of-le-creusot-forge-too/

River Bend in relation to the river – intake/outfall – potential impact rising river water levels: