Recall list: Lead Toys & Nuclear reactor parts

Rebecca Smith reports today in the WSJ (sub reqd.) on a new hurdle for the U.S. nuclear-power sector: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned this week that some parts used in reactors are defective or counterfeit. While no parts caused any accidents, many have been recalled.

What's behind the supply-chain hiccups? Basically, the shrinkage of the domestic nuclear industry after it went walkabout in the late 1970s, the paper says. To fill the gap, foreign or inexperienced firms have started making small but critical components for reactors. Says the WSJ:

NRC Chairman Dale Klein has expressed concern about the supply chain, noting that 1,350 American companies were members of the American Nuclear Society, the key professional association for the industry, in 1977. Today, there are only about 700, and many of them are foreign owned. "This dramatic decline in the domestic supply chain is clearly having an effect," said Mr. Klein. "The global supply chain is stretched, if not to the breaking point, at least to the tipping point."

Supply-chain woes are familiar to most energy sectors these days. Oil companies struggle to get rigs and other equipment for exploration. Wind turbine makers have been wracked by component shortages for years. Solar power makers are still struggling with a shortage of pure polysilicon.

But for the nuclear industry, the problem is more dire. Long lead times for plant construction can grow even longer thanks to bottlenecks of key components, while the safety issue is of more concern than, say, a faulty wind turbine. The nuclear industry in particular, after hitting the pause button after Three Mile Island, faces an uphill struggle to get back up to speed. Michael Wallace, president of Constellation Generation Group, has been warning about infrastructure problems. He told the U.S. Senate in 2005:

The U.S. electricity business and our nation are paying the price today for our inability to strike an appropriate balance between what was expedient and easy in the short-term, and what was prudent and more difficult in the long-term. We are paying the price today for 10 to 15 years of neglect of longer-term imperatives and the oversupply of base-load generation in the 1990's

The NRC has sent inspectors abroad to inspect components. But that's not a slam-dunk, either. - Inspections are "expensive and not everything is in English, which complicates our task," said Glenn Tracy, director in the NRC Division of Construction Inspection and Operational Programs.  Read more by By Keith Johnson WSJ