Evidently enough is enough, and a nuclear power plant in South Carolina is going digital.  Yes, all of the other nuclear plants in the USA (all 103 of them) are analog.  Why?  Three main reasons:

1. Analog has worked perfectly so far.
2. Analog is immune to hackers.
3. Changing a system that works to a new system can lead to problems.

Apparently the cost of running the digital system is expected to be far lower than it currently costs with the analog system, enough cheaper that they can pay for the change, pay for the training, pay for the safety inspections, and pay for everything else and still have it save money.

"'The systems in the plants right now, they are doing an excellent job. The plants are very safe — they’ve been doing their jobs for years,' said Joe Naser, technical executive with the Electric Power Research Institute.

The goal of going digital is to save money. Most systems in a nuclear power plant are monitors with four sensors. If two of them have out-of-whack readings, engineers often have to 'trip' the plant, or shut it down, until the problem is resolved. If a nuclear plant sits idle for a day, it can cost a utility company more than $2 million. That isn’t spare change, even for a company like North Carolina-based plant operator Duke Energy, which earned $1.3 billion in 2010."

Source:  Boston Herald

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