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
Shutdown (nuclear reactor) margin can be calculated in the same way as shutdown margin, except that the negative reactivity of the most reactive control rod and non-scramable rods is ignored. This definition allows the reactor to be designed so that it remains safely shut down even if that most reactive control rod becomes stuck out of the core. A reactor is in cold shutdown when, in addition, its coolant system is at atmospheric pressure and at a temperature below . This temperature is low enough that the water cooling the fuel in a light water reactor does not boil even when the reactor