ARTICLE - US COMMERCIAL NUCLEAR POWER

US Commercial Nuclear Power- A Major Success Story

Over the past ten years, the US Commercial Nuclear Power Industry has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to minimize and eliminate human error. Involved in this has been the development of worker behavioral modification tools, elevation of worker task and awareness training, the development of worker aids, streamlining of processes, and the identification and correction of many 'traps' and 'latent organizational weaknesses' that had been setting people up for failure.

As the following graphs clearly illustrate, this industry has had great success at increasing levels of both safety and performance.

US Commercial Nuclear Power (Data Source: Nuclear Energy Institute)

Annual Industry Average of Significant Events

Significant Events are those categorized by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) as meeting one or more of the following criteria:

• Degradation of important safety equipment
• A major transient or unexpected plant response to a transient
• Degradation of fuel integrity, the primary coolant pressure boundary, or important associated structures
• A reactor trip with complications
• An unplanned release of radioactivity exceeding the technical specifications or regulations
• Operation outside the technical specification limits
• Other events considered significant

Industrial Safety Accident Rate

Many industries in the United States have greatly improved their industrial safety ratings, particularly over the past 20 years. Commercial nuclear power is no exception. The numbers on the graph indicate the numbers of industrial safety accidents that resulted in lost work, restricted work, or fatalities per 200,000 hours worked.

As shown, the graph indicates a 230% reduction in people getting hurt (1995-2005). If you were to look at the improvement from 1980 (where the incidence rate was 2.1), you would see an 875% reduction!

Now we must ask the question...

Has this increase in plant and personnel safety resulted in increased costs? As Dr. W. Edwards Deming himself identified, quality and profitability go hand in hand (as clearly demonstrated by the next two graphs).

Capacity Factor

Capacity Factor is the actual amount of electricity generated as a percentage of generation capability. For example, if a plant is capable of generating 1,000 MWe (Megawatts Electric), and does so 24 hours per day for all 365 days in a year, its capacity factor would be 100%. Any reduction in power or days shutdown would lower this percentage (and thus the capacity factor).

The graph below indicates the Capacity Factor for the entire US nuclear fleet. As can be seen, there has been an increase of almost 15% from 1995 to 2005.

Production Costs

The production costs identified in the graph below represent the average sum of Operations Costs + Maintenance Costs + Fuel Costs for the industry. The numbers for each year represent this cost in cents per kilowatt-hour (normalized to 2004 dollars).

Conclusion

Lessons have been learned. Actions have been taken. Safety is up. Production is up. Costs are down. The US commercial nuclear industry has invested a tremendous amount of energy and money to achieve these results. The great news is that because of the efforts of the Practicing Perfection Institute, Inc., all industries can now directly benefit from the lessons learned and the successes of the US commercial nuclear power industry.

For more information, contact the Practicing Perfection Institute, Inc. at 877-832-9492, or visit the website at http://www.PracticingPerfectionInstitute.com.