Nuclear safety in the United States inadvertently reversed pipe restraints at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant reactors, compromising seismic protection systems, which further undermined confidence in nuclear safety. All of these well-publicised events, undermined public support for the U.S. nuclear industry in the 1970s and the 1980s. In 2002, the USA had what former NRC Commissioner Victor Gilinsky termed "its closest brush with disaster" since Three Mile Island's 1979 meltdown; a workman at the Davis-Besse reactor found a large rust hole in the top of the reactor pressure vessel. Recent concerns have been expressed about safety issues affecting a large part of the nuclear fleet of
Nuclear chain reaction another fission. The remaining neutrons either are absorbed in non-fission reactions or leave the system without being absorbed. The value of "k" determines how a nuclear chain reaction proceeds: When describing kinetics and dynamics of nuclear reactors, and also in the practice of reactor operation, the concept of reactivity is used, which characterizes the deflection of reactor from the critical state. ρ=(k-1)/k. InHour is a unit of reactivity of a nuclear reactor. In a nuclear reactor, "k" will actually oscillate from slightly less than 1 to slightly more than 1, due primarily to thermal effects (as more power is produced,