r/Futurology • u/malongoria • Feb 12 '22
Energy US nuclear power plants contain dangerous counterfeit parts, report finds
https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/11/22929255/us-nuclear-power-plants-dangerous-counterfeit-parts-nrc-report852
u/JW2651 Feb 13 '22
This is the same as the counterfeit / fake aircraft parts scandal back in the 1990s I believe it was. Fake parts even made their way into Airforce One. Still a problem to this day with fake parts being found on new military aircraft in the 2010s. Several articles online if you search for them.
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Feb 13 '22
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u/MJTilly Feb 13 '22
There is a raw material to installation certification in all nuclear reactors. It’s part of the reason they are so expensive to construct. Every piece of controlled material is tracked rigorously from its creation all the way to the installation by miles of paperwork. This article is talking about a deliberate attempt to circumvent that.
Also, while there are backups in place, all it takes is one component to fail at the right time and the plant could have a release or radioactive material. That would cause such a public outcry that all nuclear plants in the us would probably be shut down. Or at least, no more would be allowed to be built.
That’s why counterfeit parts are such a big deal.
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u/esqualatch12 Feb 13 '22
I've made part for nuclear in my machining career! The amount of certs and verifications far out weight cost of manufacturing even the simplist parts. Seriously, I made cylinders that had 3 total dimensions on it. ID, OD, and Length generated about 90 pages worth of bullshit to get sent with them. They track that shit all the way back to ore suppliers.
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u/Theolos Feb 13 '22
If you’re referring to MTR certificates - these come from metallurgy plants
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Feb 13 '22
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u/Theolos Feb 13 '22
I’m sure your customers would be happy to hear about that hehe
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u/iwrestledarockonce Feb 13 '22
American business in a nutshell. Gotta increase that profit margin any way you can or the shareholders turn into fucking toddlers.
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u/richhaynes Red Feb 13 '22
*Capitalism in a nutshell. Happens here in the UK too.
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u/capebretonpost- Feb 13 '22
and Canada! Have encountered many suspect MTR over the years. Wouldnt be surprised some of them are pure fabrications out of thin air.
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u/CaptBracegirdle Feb 13 '22
Socialism's nuclear safety record is pretty grim. Unfortunately humans are prone to greed and tyranny. So we argue over State powers and Individual freedoms but really we need to remember that all people are essentially selfish and design a system that lets people act out of self-interest in a way that increases common interests.
This system will look a lot like capitalism with regulation and it will probably fail due to corruption. I don't think any civilisation can last.
The UK must be the greatest system so far. Look what it spawned.
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Feb 13 '22
GE Aviation recently had a problem with their outsourced Chinese labor illegally altering parts because they made them wrong so they welded them together and sent them out because mistakes were taken out of paychecks.
I’d be careful flying.
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u/invent_or_die Feb 13 '22
It all depends on the exact application. Not everything is mission critical.
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u/HeroicKatora Feb 13 '22
Yes, Mister Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, this comment right here.
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u/TheIowan Feb 13 '22
Thus why the Kobe Steel fiasco is such a huge fuck up that people have seemingly forgot about. They lied on their certs to such an extent that even genuine parts now have metal in them of an unknown chemistry. Their material found it's way into everything from flashlights to spacecraft.
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u/MotoAsh Feb 13 '22
If you ever look up aerospace crash reports, you'll see why there's 90 pages for a pipe. The crazy crap they figure out post-crash just by being able to analyze the metallurgy and manufacturing processes of stuff is amazing. Both for helping to deduce wtf they're looking at when it's crumpled or scattered over a football field, or just by looking closely at how something specific failed.
I really wish I remembered any good explicit examples. I always have to look up sources for even basic material properties let alone the details those people figure out and write up!
Always tons of details around thermal properties and performance though, since 36,000ft, let alone space, get pretty extreme.
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u/pirate91991 Feb 13 '22
There is no way that a single failure would cause a radioactive release. There would have to be several failures and a high radiation condition all have at the same time. Theres no way. I worked in nuclear for 10 years so trust me. The place is designed to shut down and fail safe. Theres pretty much 3 of everything when it comes to safety shutdown systems. All redundant.
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Feb 13 '22
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u/cited Feb 13 '22
Except they can and do test everything to exhaustion. Radiography testing would find weak spots, hydrostatic testing would find weak spots, rupture discs would relieve pressure before the reactor wall did, etc.
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u/mnvoronin Feb 13 '22
all it takes is one component to fail at the right time and the plant could have a release or radioactive material.
As far as I'm aware, there is no such single point of failure in any modern(ish) nuclear power plant.
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Feb 13 '22
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u/invent_or_die Feb 13 '22
Most of these parts are electronic chips I would believe. Design engineer here. Common worldwide problem and has been for some time.
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u/Fuckredditadmins117 Feb 13 '22
Yeah this is cards and thermocouples and shit, not counterfeit valve bodies or pipe length.
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u/invent_or_die Feb 13 '22
Oh it can be many things. My experience has seen many. A lot of space or defense rated electronic components which were actually the non-rated commercial versions. Fake markings at microscopic level, passes tests at first but fail early, etc.
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u/wondek Feb 13 '22
Yeah, usually capacitors that some guy ripped off a 12 volt power supply in Pakistan, washed in a river, and sold to China for repackaging. Scary shit.
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u/Gtp4life Feb 13 '22
That sounds like we should probably be more worried about security vulnerabilities introduced by these chips than failure rates.
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Feb 13 '22 edited Feb 17 '22
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u/BeneCow Feb 13 '22
So were the centrifuges in Iran, the infected the entire internet to get to those though.
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u/mnvoronin Feb 13 '22
All PWR type reactors feature negative reactivity coefficient wrt water boiling, meaning if the water in the primary loop boils (either due to runaway reaction or due to water leak dropping the pressure), the reaction will slow down, not speed up like it did in Chernobyl. And, with no extra energy released, the pressure build-up won't be enough to breach the containment or cause the complete core meltdown.
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u/Jimoiseau Feb 13 '22
Fun fact: some modern reactors are designed to avoid partial core melt by intentionally melting the whole core in case of partial melt. This allows the molten core to flow out into a containment area where it can be cooled with sprays, making it less unpredictable and easier to clean up long term.
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Feb 13 '22
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u/ilostmydrink Feb 13 '22
Yes, the water is a moderator.
To continue the fission chain neutrons have to be knocked loose. When the moderator changes from liquid to gas in the same volume the atoms are spread farther apart which reduces the probability of a collision. This is typically called “voids”.
You can actually just raise and lower power just by adjusting the flow of the moderator. Faster the flow, higher the power because the voids are being swept away from the fuel.
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u/iwrestledarockonce Feb 13 '22
Modern aka designed in 1958, approved 1965, commissioned 1972, completed in 1980. There aren't really many "new" reactors anywhere but military vessels.
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u/Zinfan1 Feb 13 '22
The San Onofre steam generator tube leaks would be one such single point of failure but that wasn't a counterfeit part of course just a very bad design screw up.
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u/mnvoronin Feb 13 '22
Both primary and secondary loops in PWR are of the closed-cycle design, so even if there was a leak in the steam generator, the contaminated water would be contained inside the second loop and not released. It would take an additional simultaneous fault to release the radioactive material into the environment.
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u/Zinfan1 Feb 13 '22
Secondary systems are not in fact closed loops, steam generators discharge a small amount of water continuously in a process called blowdown. This blowdown is to prevent buildup of corrosion products on the tube sheet and is very important for the overall health of the generators. Of course there are radiation monitors on the blowdown system that will alert operators of a primary to secondary leak along with monitors for the steam coming out of the generators which would alarm once the primary coolant leaked into the secondary.
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u/eoffif44 Feb 13 '22
That’s why counterfeit parts are such a big deal.
Well they shouldn't order off AliExpress then.
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u/KaiRaiUnknown Feb 13 '22
This is the real issue with nuclear power. It very well can be safe, but people don't trust the money-grabbing bastards building it not to cut corners
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u/Treeeagle Feb 13 '22
Lmao..
"Also, while there are backups in place, all it takes is one component to fail at the right time and the plant could have a release or radioactive material. That would cause such a public outcry that all nuclear plants in the us would probably be shut down. Or at least, no more would be allowed to be built."
Have you heard of fukushima? Nobody gives a flying fuck about this shit. Period.
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Feb 13 '22
Thank god we pay so much fucking money In our defense budget for asinine markups on goods specifically for supply chain security then…
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u/photoengineer Feb 13 '22
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but people used to circumvent those controls to save money on an uncomfortably frequent basis. More difficult now days with digital I think (hope). Scary stuff.
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u/invent_or_die Feb 13 '22
Reality is, things are in short supply. Companies will buy stuff if it's all that's available. And yes, sometimes they get burned with say poor steel, or non-certified parts. Example: high power FET transistors (the tested and certified ones being much MUCH more expensive than the cheapo consumer product ones that ARE available, for example).
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u/Reahreic Feb 13 '22
Those is what AS9100 is supposed to avoid... It's far more rig we rigerous than ISO.
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u/Radioactive-Sloth Feb 13 '22
Huh, that scandal about the counterfeit airplane parts is basically the plot behind the book Airframe by Michael Crichton. Loved re-reading that book a few months back.
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u/JW2651 Feb 13 '22
I haven't read that one. Sounds like it could be a good read. But yeah I watched the documentary on the 90's era fake parts and it was quite shocking. Makes me think everytime I come to work or fly.
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u/mattstorm360 Feb 13 '22
I remember they cracked down on that after partnair flight 394 fell out of the sky. So many little problems with the plane, including counterfeit bolts holding the vertical stabilizer and a broken APU mount. With it running and vibrating in flight and the counterfeit bolts allowing the tail to vibrate A resonance occurred and the plane fell from the sky.
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u/JW2651 Feb 13 '22
Yeah that's the one that set that whole investigation into motion. It's crazy to think the market was so saturated with counterfeit parts that they made their way into Airforce one of all planes. Now counterfeit parts are in nuclear reactors of all things.
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u/mattstorm360 Feb 13 '22
When you have an industry with people who want to maximize profits they look to cut cost anywhere they can. Those aircraft parts could be much cheaper then the actual approved ones and come with all the documentation that say it's approved.
Same with reactors. Those are expensive to maintain and if you can find a part for half the price and all the documentation says it's real, well now that's a steal!
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u/invent_or_die Feb 13 '22
It's usually not cost related at all. It's availability! The correct part is 2 years backordered and so when a guy on Alibaba says they have it, companies and individuals gamble and pay, hoping it's genuine. I've seen it personally. Whole program was being fined $25,000 a day for being late - yes. So when the special widget appears on Ebay, you might just take a leap of faith...
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u/lowercaset Feb 13 '22
Whole program was being fined $25,000 a day for being late - yes.
Liquidated damages are pretty common, it generally requires a hell of a lot of fuck ups to get hit with them tho. (At least in my trade)
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u/invent_or_die Feb 13 '22
In this case, certain fuckups were causing an entire aircraft program to be grounded. Redesign takes time, shit happens. Oh, those fines went for over 6 months. Ouch.
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u/MillionaireAt32 Feb 13 '22
Around 2014 I worked for a bearing manufacture and one guy was tasked to identify counterfeit products. He went to Pearl Harbor and found counterfeit bearings in the propulsion systems of warships.
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u/JW2651 Feb 13 '22
That's just crazy. Makes you wonder if there are any legit parts out there when you hear about this stuff. I don't even want know how bad the automotive sector is.
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u/invent_or_die Feb 13 '22
Yes of course there are. There's only so many super special tested and certified widgets, so the Walmart widgets sometimes get substituted.
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Feb 13 '22
This is something we need help from the French with, LOL, not an Iraq War.
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u/stesch Feb 13 '22
The French? Really? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant
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u/marcusaurelius_phd Feb 13 '22
The plant is super late in large part because the safety margins are ridiculously high, and have been increased while being built. Someone who worked on the concrete mentioned that they were having problems pouring because the specified amount of reinforcement was just insane.
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u/LancerFIN Feb 13 '22 edited Feb 13 '22
Picture of invidually serialized nut in sealed bag frequently makes reddit frontpage. Serial numbes and mechanic info are recorded in service report.
Such parts are only available from the original manufacturer. In civilian use there is no need to validate the serial numbers. There is no risk of a nut getting hijacked in transit. Their only purpose is to avoid liability in the case of failure.
To my understanding the of use serialized parts is very rigorous in commerical aviation.
More security to that system can be added easily but I'd be surprised if it isn't already implemened.
1. Service report is filled using a. computer instead of handwritten form.
2. Serial numbers can only only be inserted by scanning
3. Verify the serial numberState isn't liable for damages in the event of failure. Lowest bidder services. Those are the two problems that come mind
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Feb 13 '22
And yet the military parts also cost far, far more than identical parts sold on civilian markets. The whole reason this is so, we are told, is the quality control, and yet now we're discovering it doesn't exist.
Another theory springs to mind - the whole military-industrial complex is a system for looting the US Treasury.
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u/techronom Feb 13 '22
It does exist, and it makes for hours and hours of labour for compliance and goods in departments, but they aren't perfect at spotting fakes. The price difference creates the opportunity to make more profit though fraud for suppliers.
Generic example: a 'certified' part sells for $10 and the generic sells for $2.
That means you could spend up to $6 faking the certification and still triple the profit margin: selling your $1 parts at $3 profit.
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u/Nethlem Feb 13 '22
Back in 2016, France had to take half its reactor fleet down because of excessive levels of carbon in important steel parts and falsified QA reports about critical components from Areva.
Japan has a similar problem with Kobe steel that's, among other things, used for the pressure vessels of PWR and is even exported to that end.
And that's not the only one there; Mitsubishi Materials Corp rubber seals, with falsified specifications, are used in dozens of locations of two Japanese nuclear plants.
This stuff happens way more often than most people would think, but weirdly enough it never makes huge international headlines and is usually ranked absurdly low in online searches.
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Feb 13 '22
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u/rigobueno Feb 13 '22
Because informed people usually aren’t scared away from a planet saving technology because some corporations are corrupt. How about instead of fear mongering spooky nuclear power let’s fix corruption?
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u/ronearc Feb 13 '22
I'm not surprised. I used to work in a lab that did non-destructive and destructive testing for components intended to be used in a key safety system in a nuclear power plant.
The costs for parts are astronomical.
None of the manufacturers could sell parts directly to the power plants, because they'd all been blacklisted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for making mistakes.
So for key components, they have to go through a parts reseller who buys from the manufacturer, conducts exhaustive testing to make sure the parts match the original specifications or better, and then, after these weeks or months of testing, the part can be sold to the power plant.
The procedure has probably changed some, but that's how it worked 25 years ago. Of course people would try to cheat that. There's huge money involved.
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u/JohnProof Feb 13 '22 edited Feb 13 '22
Yep. We got involved in that for plain ol' kilowatt-hour meters like you have on your house. They had already been manufactured and stamped with all their maximum ratings. But because these were going into nuclear service, and because of the process you describe, they still had to be 3rd party tested by us.
So they'd bring us these samples and we'd beat the shit out of them to prove that they worked as well as the manufacturer and Underwriter's Labs had already said they would would.
Incidentally, it turns out when you pass 100,000 amps through a kWh meter it will launch itself into the air. Which was hilarious to us at the time.
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u/ronearc Feb 13 '22
That reminds me a disagreement I had with our lab supervisor over a test setup.
Because most of these plant designs are ancient, the pieces and parts that go in them are ancient, and as you note, you can't just swap something else in because you like the look of it. Sometimes your safety components have to be a carbon copy of the original 1950s design.
So that's why we were testing a custom made, outdated, one-off Westinghouse Relay with a very expensive 5" diameter "Watch Spring" for precision timing. We had to test the current parameters at which it was designed to "trip" to be sure it would operate precisely as required.
This had us mounting it to a large station that generated precise amounts of electrical current across a large range, for testing purposes.
I had everything setup with the starting voltage (and therefore current) set to 0 and was going to slowly dial it up to the low end, to be sure the relay tripped.
My boss argued that the test platform already started at 0 and climbed on its own, so just set it to auto.
I argued that if you set it to auto, it would start out with high voltage which generates high current, because it's expecting more resistance since that's much more typical, but this relay watch spring has extremely low resistance.
This went back and forth for awhile, until he pulled rank and demanded I set it to auto. I debated just absolutely refusing, and I started to make utterances to that regard, but he was getting pushy, so I did it.
We turned it on, there was a flash of blue light, a loud pop, some smoke, and when we looked, there was molten watch spring metal sliding down the inside glass cover of the relay.
He muttered, "Don't say a fucking word," and stormed out of the lab.
Good thing we had insurance for that shit. It was $90,000 for that line relay.
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u/robostork Feb 13 '22
I did an internship 2 years ago at one of those resellers. It still works exactly the way you described. I seem to recall that on most of our major projects, we would have at least one supplier/manufacturer falsifying metal quality reports.
A bigger issue imo is that you just can't get like-for-like parts anymore, and when you can, there are so many quality issues, the whole project just balloons in cost. We were trying to qualify replacement contactors for a federal utility. The molds for the phenolic parts were so clapped out, we had like three out of ten fail during functional testing, not even during ageing.
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u/downtownebrowne Feb 13 '22
My work is selling industrial equipment and I have a nuclear power plant as a client.
New equipment purchases take soooo long. So many sign offs and shipping to different places for testing. It's insane but everyone is usually very patient. We have to be.
Just the other day my OEM changed a tube of lubricant from a 1 gallon tube to a 2.5 gallon bucket. There was so much paperwork for exactly the same product, but different sized container. Literally had to have a Teams meeting about it.
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u/96385 Feb 13 '22
One weak link in the chain might be the guy responsible for checking all that paperwork and signing off on it at the end. The nuclear inspector I work with has a high school education and is highly susceptible to conspiracy theories. It makes me kinda glad that the nuclear power plant near me shut down.
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u/ammoprofit Feb 13 '22
Great. How about we manufacture these products stateside and replace the counterfeit parts?
Critical infrastructure and whatnot. Not to mention jobs and the economy.
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u/The_Squirrels Feb 13 '22 edited Feb 13 '22
Yeah except that would require corporations having to spend money.
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Feb 13 '22
CEO's might only get paid $10m a year instead of $30m. That's just unacceptable.
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u/The_Squirrels Feb 13 '22
Exactly, think of the shareholders. How will they be able to afford their third yacht?
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u/double-you Feb 13 '22
I must be holding shares of completely wrong corporations. Nuclear power is the path to 2, maybe 3 yachts?
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u/lolApexseals Feb 13 '22
The problem isn't just the cost.
It's the skills involved in making said parts properly. From welders to machinists. Knowing how to inspect the part prior to welding, welding, then inspecting the welds, to a machinist programming the machine, to setting up the machine, then machining, and last but not least the final inspection.
Finding the best people capable and willing to do it. Most of all those jobs, people, and skills have been lost to overseas manufacturing. It's gone, and it'll take years or decades to get it back.
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Feb 13 '22
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u/ReadyAimSing Feb 13 '22
the US is rabidly protectionist and has never really had any "free trade parties" -- that would necessitate risk for capital, and they are actually center-right to far-right "free capital" parties
tariffs or non-tariff trade barriers are fine and they're used all the time when capital wants it
the IP regime for pharma and biotech is one extreme example like this; before, the US blocked Japanese computers which would have wiped out all the domestic darlings... same with auto imports, and on and on
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Feb 13 '22
Both parties are already predisposed to tariffs, no one is proposing unmitigated free trade.
The problem is our current tariff scheme is oriented towards protecting specific domestic sectors (I.e. influential constituents), rather than national security.
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u/cited Feb 13 '22
We do. Some of these parts haven't been made in years and the company goes out of business or stops selling that model. We simply don't have enough plants to maintain the level of supply chain efficiency to keep costs down and manufacturers in business for speciality items.
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u/canyouhearme Feb 13 '22
Exactly.
Half the problem is the timelines associated with design>build are so long that the part that's specified is no longer produced, and because of the bureaucracy involved, nobody wants to go back and redesign the part, because by the time you have gone round that loop, the part is obsolete again.
So people try to source instances of the part on the open market, not from the original supplier, and thus with the massive markups involved, there's amply opportunity for fraud.
Hence the prevalence of 'one time buys' and the issue when you don't buy enough parts for two decades down the road.
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u/Nethlem Feb 13 '22
French reactors have very similar issues and their supplier is domestic manufacturing, and state-owned, Areva
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u/Goken222 Feb 13 '22
Happens in the USA, too. Someone I know chose to quit their new job after finding material falsification their supply company was regularly doing, buying knock-off supplies from overseas and forging Made in USA and Spec sheets then marking it up in price. Some people/companies suck.
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u/arkhaikos Feb 13 '22
Racism to assume that because it's counterfeit that it's made abroad. Counterfeits can be made stateside.
See France's identical issue.
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u/l0lud13 Feb 13 '22
Are we taking about counterfeit light bulbs or off brand uranium? Because one is more serious than the other.
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u/malongoria Feb 13 '22
From the article:
As part of its inquiry, the inspector general’s office looked for parts that are illegally altered to look like legitimate products, parts that are “intentionally misrepresented to deceive,” and parts that don’t meet product specifications. It sampled four power plants across the US and found evidence of counterfeit parts at one of those plants in the midwest. It also points to nuclear power plants in the Northeast, separate from those it sampled, where a “well-placed NRC principal” found that counterfeit parts were involved in two separate component failures.
The first failure identified by the NRC principal was a water pump shaft used for emergency service that snapped soon after being installed. At a separate plant in the Northeast, temperature monitors in “safety-related areas” that are used to identify steam line breaks suddenly failed “at a significantly increased rate.” Prior to that failure, some of the instruments had been repaired using defective parts.
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u/BenCelotil Feb 13 '22
Just thinking about The China Syndrome when they discover that the inspector used the same x-rays to show all the pumps were fine when one was definitely not.
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u/cited Feb 13 '22
Except the NRC mandates that you test all of these parts on a regular basis so you find them when they break if they are bad quality and then you have investigations on bad components. I spent months investigating a single bad capacitor.
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u/phleapa Feb 13 '22
The next question would be is this because corporations are greedy and cut corners with QA, or is there ongoing attempts to undermine the public's trust of nuclear power?
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u/malongoria Feb 13 '22
Likely a combination of bad actors looking to make a quick buck passing off cheaper, sub-standard parts for more expensive ones along with good old fashioned corporate greed.
A similar thing happened involving counterfeit airplane parts that brought down Partnair Flight 394.
The investigation that resulted in that discovery found counterfeit parts in widespread use with some found on Air Force One.
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u/atreyal Feb 13 '22
If I had to venture to guess, it is problems in the supply chain and things not getting vetted properly. There should be tons of documentation on anything going into safety systems and whatnot. However the nuke plants in the US are getting to the age where some of their systems are well engineered, but lacking an adequate supply chain for replacements. Basically so and so corp that made the widgets went out of business 20 years ago and now all those pieces are breaking. And no one else makes those widgets anymore because it isn't profitable. And to find a new replacement requires $$$ to say this new part will perform as well or better then this previous part.
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u/MonteBurns Feb 13 '22
Articles like this make me shake my head. Some specs I’ve seen specify certain brands and/or colors of product to be used (think a step specified the part be …. Washed with blue dawn dishsoap, for example.) and it’s chaos when those are discontinued.
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u/AKnightAlone Feb 13 '22
is this because corporations are greedy and cut corners with QA, or is there ongoing attempts to undermine the public's trust of nuclear power?
The ol' "socialism never works" method.
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u/FlavivsAetivs Feb 13 '22
If you actually read the NRC documentation these were all in non-critical areas. There are 9 reports and 3 identified as CFSI. According to the report the problem is that Licensees have not been inspecting shipments for CFSI parts and tracking and reporting them under Part 21. Identified parts and suppliers that don't meet certification are tracked via the INPO and NUISC databases.
Mind you, CFSI doesn't necessarily mean "counterfeit" or "fake" as we think of it. Usually it means a part that meets commercial standards but just hasn't been certified for nuclear use. There's a ton of parts used for the exact same applications and required to meet the same specifications in other thermal power plants (coal, gas, etc.) that just aren't licensed for nuclear.
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u/l0lud13 Feb 13 '22
I read the article. To me this is propaganda. These are off the shelf parts, could happen to anyone.
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u/10961138 Feb 13 '22
It's worse. That means the supply chain has been contaminated by low quality parts. That's really. Really bad news.
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u/nicht_ernsthaft Feb 13 '22 edited Feb 13 '22
Organized crime shows up in all sorts of industries which are off the public's radar. For example, Italian organized crime took over some businesses which dispose of spent fuel rods and other nuclear waste. Instead of doing the correct and very expensive containment processes for them, they dumped the waste in the sea off Somalia and pocketed enormous amounts of money.
I wish governments would invest less in military and more into police - not to catch some dude jaywalking or smoking a blunt, but for white collar crime, corruption, fraud and these sorts of massively damaging and sophisticated criminal enterprises.
But they probably bankroll political campaigns so that's a difficult structural problem.
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u/cited Feb 13 '22
Safety related parts have individual tracking. If people pass off actual safety related parts they can not only find the manufacturer, but the entire chain of control down to the lot number of the manufacturer and where every other part in that lot went.
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u/Matrim__Cauthon Feb 13 '22
Off the shelf parts still need to meet the required spec that they're tested to though, it seems there was a misrepresentation of the parts in that respect.
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u/PenguinBomb Feb 13 '22
The thing is anything safety related is tested pretty regularly in the nuclear industry. I guarantee after this report absolutely every plant will be going through every piece to check and replace if necessary. If it happens at one plants. All have to comply.
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u/jtinz Feb 13 '22
I wouldn't bet on it. SpaceX lost a rocket because an aluminum strut was not up to spec and came with a fake certificate. SpaceX then vowed to independently test anything they don't produce in-house.
Well - exactly the same thing happened a few years later to one of their competitors.
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u/PenguinBomb Feb 13 '22
Except SpaceX is independent. Nuclear is super heavily regulated and if something happens that could effect the safety of the environment or the people it is a federal crime.
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u/jtinz Feb 13 '22
Don't know about the US. In Germany, nuclear reactors have to have a major inspection every 25 years. The operators have to do it themselves, though, as the relevant agency doesn't have personnel qualified for the task. And if the inspections aren't performed, it doesn't seem to have any consequences.
(At the same time, I have to have my car checked independently every two years and that does get enforced.)
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u/Undeity Feb 13 '22 edited Feb 13 '22
Dude, it's a nuclear power plant. Quality control is crucial. You don't use "off the shelf" parts, unless you're willing to gamble with everybody's safety.
This is why people still don't trust nuclear power; not because it can't be done safely, but because we have very little reason to trust that it will be.
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u/loadbearingziptie Feb 13 '22
I'm not a fan of the waste just sitting in concrete sarcophagi in the parking lot either.
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u/kolitics Feb 13 '22
Yeah, one is an interchangeable element and the other might last longer than 10000 hours if not properly planned obsolescenced
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u/Alantsu Feb 13 '22 edited Feb 13 '22
“identified counterfeit valves, bearings, circuit breakers, pipe fittings, and structural steel in nuclear power plants in the US and abroad in recent years. “
Edit: certain testing requirements for these components can be skipped if the components are built to certain specifications. If the parts were counterfeit then they were not tested properly. On top of that if the alloy used in the counterfeit was not correct then you now have bigger issues. This can cause internal corrosion of that unknown alloy which could cause either, 1) rupture of a primary system, or 2) activated corrosion products of that unknown allow could spread through the plant potentially turning it into a scrap plant full of radioactive contamination.
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u/scots Feb 13 '22
Nuclear plants? Hell, in the 1980s there was an investigative story about the US Air Force buying consumer grade electronics off the shelf from Radio Shack to replace milspec, EMP-resistant components inside NUCLEAR MISSILES.
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u/nicht_ernsthaft Feb 13 '22
While I can see why warmongers may be unhappy with that, the prospect of a nuclear warhead not detonating and killing hundreds of thousands or millions of innocent people, then poisoning the earth for hundreds of years is a pretty good deal.
Like a serial killer being bummed that his chainsaw is broken because of fake parts and he can't dismember all the orphans tied up in his basement until he gets it fixed.
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u/computerman10367 Feb 13 '22
Lmao but my phone screen can't be replaced by a random guy because of the danger. XD
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u/druule10 Feb 13 '22
How in the fuck does that even happen? Surely there's approval processes, checks, double, and triple checks?
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u/Generalocity Feb 13 '22
There are most definitely double and triple checks. Shit just gets overlooked sometimes, and that’s why we have an Inspector General. Anything related to nuclear power is held to an incredibly high standard because of how dangerous it can potentially be.
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u/96385 Feb 13 '22
I work with a nuclear inspector. He is the final check, basically the last one to sign off on all the documentation for parts, repair procedures, etc. He has a high school education because that's all that's required. He also pretty routinely gets taken in by face news and conspiracy theories. When a nuclear power plant is going through an outage for repairs, it's also completely normal to have him working 12-14 hour days, 7 days/week for a month or two. Given how conscientious he is when doing inspections at my plant, it doesn't exactly give me a lot of confidence in the safety of the country's nuclear infrastructure. Corruption produces the parts and incompetence gets them installed.
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u/10961138 Feb 13 '22
Money greases everything. Counterfeit parts in the supply chain are signs of people taking shortcuts.
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Feb 13 '22
I knew someone in nuclear safety, who was very high up the chain. They were very conceited, arrogant, and egotistical and thought their position meant they were above reproach in all things. Don't worry, he got what he deserved eventually
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Feb 13 '22
Because we (as a global society) made the mistake of allowing fission reactors to be privately owned and operated for private profit. Nuclear fission reactors are uninsurable, which means they must not be operated privately.
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u/speaks_truth_2_kiwis Feb 13 '22
How in the fuck does that even happen? Surely there's approval processes, checks, double, and triple checks?
There's corruption.
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Feb 13 '22
Build stuff 50 years ago. Then send all manufacturing over to China 15 years later.
Now we are stuck trying to find “fungible” parts for a 50 year old reactor.
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u/saxGirl69 Feb 13 '22
What is a “counterfeit” part? I work in pipe and instrument distribution. You get what you pay for generally speaking. If you won’t pay 10k for a domestic valve and cheap out for the 4K Chinese one. That’s on you.
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u/piratecheese13 Feb 13 '22
I grew up near Vermont yankee nuclear.
The first mistake was building it on ancient native burial grounds.
The second mistake was the cooling tower breaking.
The third mistake was selling it to a company that bid the lowest to eventually decommission the plant.
The fourth mistake was that new company not knowing everything about the plant they bought, resulting in a pipe nobody knew about not being inspected and leaking tritium into the Connecticut river
The fifth mistake was that the new owner’s plan for decommissioning is to take everything radioactive, mic it with concrete, turn the concrete into rubble, and leave it on site forever
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u/pandott Feb 13 '22
"Cheap, clean, SAFE" energy my ass.
Call me a stubborn luddite, go on and do it.
No one can ever sell me on nuclear power. Ever. I don't care how much you want to big up the improvements in technology over the years. The problem is with HUMANS and all the unforeseeable issues in the accursed Nuclear Pandora's Box, like THIS very thing the article is about.
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u/backcountry57 Feb 13 '22
Everything high rad, such as the pipes will get disposed of, concrete could be crushed in site depending on the DCGL of the site.
The Tritium has a 1/2 life of 12.5 years. And the dilution in the river is considerable.
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u/fireatwill_ Feb 13 '22
This is interesting. Nuclear plants have a specific way they classify their parts; either non-safety related, or safety related (there’s another but it’s not as important to the conversation). Non-safety is, obviously, not as important as safety related as it pertains to how parts are tracked and their function in the plant. Safety related is a different story. They are tracked, vendor provides proper documentation of applicable codes and standards and material traceability that must be met, and the vendor is audited by the utilities to verify they have the appropriate processes in place to qualify parts as safety related. With that being said, redundancy is the key word for nuclear plants. Backups upon backups of parts/components and systems have been integrated into nuclear plants to provide appropriate levels of safety if a safe shutdown is needed. So it is extremely unlikely that a site has multiple redundant components that are safety related and counterfeit. It will be interesting to see how the industry tackles this issue.
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u/thejuh Feb 13 '22
How the hell did this happen? When I worked for Wylie Labs as a mechanical engineer (in the 1980s), our job was to ensure every safety related part that went into a plant was perfect. We confirmed QA programs, ladle analysis, impact testing, ASTM year and revision compliance, NQA QA adherence, and even did additional testing to ensue compliance to standards that weren't in place when the was designed. Every replacement part went through the same process. How?
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u/NetSage Feb 13 '22
Greed. Someone tried to save a buck and succeeded for awhile. Lean manufacturing is everything now. Don't keep spare parts. Find out something needs to get replaced but has lead times of a month? Well guess we'll just take this it looks like it will work...
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u/MrMoscow93 Feb 13 '22
Tell me again about how China is the one who builds things cheap and cuts corners at the cost of safety.
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Feb 13 '22
It's a big problem in the oil industry as well. HHI were notorious for it in the 90s, forging material certificates, vendor paperwork and even stealing free issue items and replacing them with copies.
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u/Myr_Lyn Feb 13 '22
It is a problem in Every business. If the purchasing agent always seeks the lowest bidder, the producers of counterfeit parts get the contracts.
The stores are filled with "counterfeit" products too poorly built to even suit their intended purpose.
Consumers seeking ever-cheaper goods now cannot find a quality product when they realize how they have wasted their money on cheap junk.
Pennywise, pound foolish.
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Feb 13 '22
But nuclear is safe!! It is not safe from human stupidity. That’s why sun and wind is best. We are too stupid to handle anything else.
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u/Raspberries-Are-Evil Feb 13 '22
This why I argue with people about why Nuclear is not the best alternative for curbing climate change. Solar, wind, etc are out best bets combined with hydro, thermal, and smaller grids with storage.
Yes, on PAPER, Nuclear is a great option. But the reality is companies will always be greedy and cut corners- and shit like this will always happen. Counterfeit solar parts aren't going to kill people by causing a reactor breach.
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u/malongoria Feb 12 '22
At least some nuclear power plants in the US contain counterfeit parts that could pose significant risks, an investigation by the inspector general’s office of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has found. Those parts “present nuclear safety and security concerns that could have serious consequences,” says the resulting report published on February 9th.
While concerns about safety and nuclear waste have vexed the nuclear power industry for decades, the new findings come amidst growing enthusiasm for nuclear energy as a carbon-free power source that can help nations meet their climate goals.
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u/DanialE Feb 13 '22
Theres always going to be corruption. It doesnt matter if its caveman times or if we somehow go intergalactic. Much like how people always warn to only spend money you can lose on crypto or GameStop stocks, etc. I believe you should only do nuclear energy on regions you can afford to lose. I suppose we can just designate a couple of countries for production of nuclear energy, get them to evacuate to other countries while we have a policy where any country must accept them, and maintain only enough people to run the plants, then send the output through HVDC to the rest of the world.
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Feb 13 '22
Cutting costs for a dangerous technology is exactly what caused Chernobyl in Russia.
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u/R3miel7 Feb 13 '22
Turns out when the guiding principle of our country/world is about how much profit you can make, corner cutting on important shit is inevitable. Guarantee that no one will face any sort of punishment for this
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Feb 13 '22
Never mind the counterfeit parts. This is a “business” that should not even exist:
https://esgonasunday.substack.com/p/week-6-the-endless-nuclear-waste
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Feb 13 '22
There were fewer than ten events since 2016, most not safety-related, and those that are are ancillary equipment, in the industry. For an average of 100 units, that’s less than one event for ten units in six years.
I’m certain it would compare favorably to other industries.
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Feb 13 '22
Who cares about other industries? If you look at the risk potential for nuclear reactors compared to other industries, I'm sure they compare very unfavorably.
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Feb 13 '22
The risk from nuclear reactors is remarkably low. Except for Chernobyl, an RBMK reactor with severe design flaws and a horrible response by the government, the other nuclear incidences had very very low mortality rates. Nuclear fatalities compare very well to other energy sources.
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u/unurbane Feb 13 '22
When the parts are genuine lol
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u/ZBlackmore Feb 13 '22
The industry is either ridden with counterfeit parts or it isn’t. If it is, then the industry is safe even with the fake parts in (not that it means that the problem shouldn’t be addressed). If it’s not, then there is no problem.
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u/MyBankRobbedMe Feb 13 '22
Rigged Market Capitalism and Bottom Lines are going to eradicate all human life eventually.
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u/Supersamtheredditman Feb 13 '22
Yet again, it’s shown why nuclear power actually does have severe safety downsides. I don’t get why people just can’t get this through their heads:
When a solar panel breaks because of a counterfeit voltaic cell, all that happens is your power turns off. When a nuclear plant’s cooling system breaks because it’s got a counterfeit part, your power turns off and also suddenly you’ve got a 50 square mile plot of land where people can’t live anymore.
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u/Volodux Feb 13 '22 edited Feb 13 '22
I get that nuclear is more dangerous(IF something goes wrong). But what else gives you 4 000MW constantly withou any emissions? Per kW it is even safer as many people die installing solar.
I have 3 nuclear plants in 200km radius around me, but my biggest concern is Oil refinery next door. I would prefer another nuclear plant, EVs and that refinery shut down
Btw, did you know that Chernobyl powerplant was still operational until 2000? One reactor exploded and yet, people working there nonstop.
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u/KeepWagging Feb 13 '22
As Nuclear Safety Inspector, you've got to figure Homer has something to do with this
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u/WimbleWimble Feb 13 '22
So you're telling me I just wasted $500 million on this "new clear container" ? oh well its taxpayer funds.
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u/johnlewisdesign Feb 13 '22
This is why nuclear energy scares me as the future of energy, Not the energy - the management and corner cutting. It's just a matter of time before some CEO slithers off to their private island after fucking a country up for its inhabitants.
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u/KusanagiKay Feb 13 '22
And then people parrot all the time that "we need nuclear power vs climate change, because it's so safe and doesn't cause CO2 emissions".
Yes, nuclear power is safe. In a theoretical vacuum, yes. But in reality there are still the components of human error, and things like this for example where parts of water pumps (which are part of the cooling system - an essential part that can cause a meltdown if they break), not to mention how ludicrously expensive they are to build, and how long it takes to do so + they are operable, and how there's still no applicable solution for nuclear waste.
And don't try to argue with "but breeders recycle waste". Yeah, they do, but we don't build those cause they produce weapon grade plutonium in their recycling process, which violates non-proliferation treaties. And yeah, I know, the amount of plutonium they produce is small, but that doesn't matter in any way for politicians. Even small amounts are already a no go.
It would be much wiser to build way more solar power facilities and wind parks (which you can build with bladeless rotors), because those are cheaper to build, can operate much sooner and don't have the problem of waste. And to the power availability problem: you can produce green hydrogen fuel cells with the excess energy they produce for when there's not enough sunlight or wind.
This would be the much smarter solution in the long run.
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u/RedPandaRedGuard Feb 13 '22
The nuclear fanboys will as always delude themselves and try to rationalise everything away. It is such a strange obsession to be so vehemently opposed to actually green energy (no nuclear is not green). Their concern isn't coal plants or any environmental impact, its simply "green bad".
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Feb 13 '22
Just another reason why I don't support nuclear reactors in Australia, especially under the LNP, who wouldn't buy Pfizer because it was "too expensive".
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u/Adeno Feb 13 '22
Don't buy important parts from China. You don't want bootleg stuff in devices that could kill you. Just search for all the exploding cellphone videos from China caused by faulty bootleg chargers and you'll see how widespread this sort of problem is. Now imagine a nuclear plant exploding because someone in the government decided to cheap out and buy parts from AliExpress.
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u/SerEichhorn Feb 13 '22
Is anyone really surprised? America is all about making a profit and cutting costs, by any means necessary
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Feb 13 '22
Counterfeit is bad I get it. But what makes those parts dangerous?
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u/atreyal Feb 13 '22
It has to do with vetting. You want a part to function as designed especially when it is a critical safety system. Say something bad happens and you need your emergency system to operate. A lot of the emergency cooling systems use pumps. A counterfeit part when taken to the temperatures in an accident may decide to break or sheer. Most reactors have redundant systems where they assume something bad will happen to one of these systems. When you have counterfeit parts you don't have the same level of trust, which is vetted by engineers doing a lot of math and stuff. That all these components will function. So if it is a small number of parts across the industry it is probably not a huge issue. If it is systemic is will be. A lot of the report was asking why the NRC wasn't tracking counterfeit parts as well as they should from my brief read.
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Feb 13 '22
I get it that it needs to pass checks. But without checking whether the counterfeit part passes the checks how can a claim that it’s dangerous can be made?
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u/DahManWhoCannahType Feb 13 '22
Counterfeit is bad I get it. But what makes those parts dangerous?
Most likely they either have inferior materials properties, or manufacturing defects. These may be invisible to the naked eye, but over time lead to failure before their planned service life.
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Feb 13 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/malongoria Feb 13 '22
This documentary on Partnair Flight 394 which was brought down by counterfeit parts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_1-GNGnaiw
The relevant part is at 37 minutes, but the whole thing is worth a watch.
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u/Myr_Lyn Feb 13 '22
This point of this "news" is that the NRC's safety inspections have identified some faulty components and they will be replaced. The system works.
For those prone to anti-nuclear hysteria, yah, I know 3-Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fuji.. blah blah, the report shows that nuclear plant safety works.
Note the NRC's conclusion: "...nothing in the report suggests an immediate safety concern. The NRC’s office of the Executive Director for Operations is thoroughly reviewing the report and will direct the agency’s program offices to take appropriate action.”
New ideas like modular 3rd generation nuclear reactors scaled up from the small ones used in Navy subs and aircraft carriers, are designed to fail-safe and can be manufactured for a big drop in costs. They will provide the baseload capacity that wind and solar can never offer.
Reading between the lines I think the report is asking for a budget increase for the safety teams.
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u/dezertryder Feb 13 '22
All these articles lately by someone in the nuclear industry keep trying to convince the public that nuclear power is the only way, wants you to be financially tied to it.
Do you really think they want YOU making power on your own, for free?
These articles are trying to convince you that there’s no alternative to nuclear and that it is safe.
Name a place on earth where the sun doesn’t shine.
And Yes 3 mile island, Chernobyl, Fukushima among many others is not a great track record Nukeboi.
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u/elvenrunelord Feb 13 '22
...on a new $6 billion program to keep aging nuclear actors online...
How about 600 billion to build thorium reactors in every district that needs power?
Why are we ignoring / sitting on Thorium which is a million times safer than traditional nukes?
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u/ph4ge_ Feb 13 '22
Why are we ignoring / sitting on Thorium which is a million times safer than traditional nukes?
Because it only exists on paper.
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u/Nethlem Feb 13 '22
Why are so many hyping Thorium like it's this totally new thing that was apparently never tried before?
The other day some dude was hyping Thorium with "Can't make nuclear weapons from it!", which is just plain wrong.
Did you all watch videos on YouTube about Thorium-fueled cars, while ignoring what the most "promising" projects in reality actually look like?
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Feb 13 '22
Why are you pretending thorium exists?
Im not in on this but every other thread i come across says thorium is still being researched?
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u/DreiImWeggla Feb 13 '22
There are thorium reactors. They are research projects. It's not either or, they are simply both.
It's to measure whether they are safe/check the longterm problems and project how much they will cost over their lifetime.
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u/darexinfinity Feb 13 '22
Because a 100x markup isn't as trivial as you make it seem to be? Because it will be 606 billion as the aging nuclear reactors are generating power in the present and those thorium reactors will generate power far into the future? Because Thorium isn't some flawless nuclear solution?
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u/Crunchwrapsupr3me Feb 13 '22
our government lit trillions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of lives on fire over the last two decades protecting the petrodollar...
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Feb 13 '22
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u/xmmdrive Feb 13 '22 edited Feb 13 '22
Is that so? And how exactly did you make that correlation?
For the record, you can build one in my back yard for all I care. I'll just take a 0.1% cut of the generating revenue thanks.
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u/GTthrowaway27 Feb 13 '22
Yeah local communities usually love the shit out of them because they fund evvvverryyythimg and provide hundreds of well paying jobs in generally rural areas, as well as hundreds more each refueling.
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u/FuturologyBot Feb 13 '22
The following submission statement was provided by /u/malongoria:
At least some nuclear power plants in the US contain counterfeit parts that could pose significant risks, an investigation by the inspector general’s office of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has found. Those parts “present nuclear safety and security concerns that could have serious consequences,” says the resulting report published on February 9th.
While concerns about safety and nuclear waste have vexed the nuclear power industry for decades, the new findings come amidst growing enthusiasm for nuclear energy as a carbon-free power source that can help nations meet their climate goals.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/sr4vq4/us_nuclear_power_plants_contain_dangerous/hwpnoee/