General Electric Co. has defended its Mark 1 reactor—the design at the crippled Japanese complex—as a reliable industry workhorse. Tom Cochran, a nuclear physicist and senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council calls the design "demonstrably deficient." He says "the diesel generators are in the basement and spent fuel is in the attic. It should have been the other way around."
Pietrangelo said the inspections would go beyond the scope of regular safety checks at the plant. The companies will verify that plant operators could safely shut down reactors if there were a total loss of electric power; that crucial emergency equipment and systems could survive earthquakes, fires or floods, and that emergency personnel were properly qualified and trained, said Pietrangelo, speaking on behalf the industry's chief nuclear officers.
NRC requires nuclear plant operators to show that if hit with a single, or series of "worst case" scenarios, such as an earthquake and simultaneous rupture of the pipe delivering cooling water to the reactor, that the plant can be shut down safely without core damage. That is the standard, day-to-day requirement, he said. "We're going beyond that in this initial look," Pietrangelo said.
He said he did not think companies will report results of the inspections separately to NRC but, like all operational information, the findings will be available to NRC inspectors.
A power loss at a U.S. reactor
The UCS report focuses on the effectiveness of the resident NRC inspectors stationed at the U.S. plants. The cases included in the report show both diligent attention by NRC, and complacency that allowed operators to sweep problems under the rug.
One of the incidents covered in the UCS report was an electrical fire at Progress Energy's H.B. Robinson nuclear plant near Hartsville, S.C., on March 28 last year.
The incident began with a short-circuit on a major electrical cable, which caused a drop in power supplied to a large pump circulating water through the reactor. The reactor shut down automatically, but the incident damaged the main power transformer connecting the plant to the outside electrical grid, and other events left about half of the plant's equipment without power.
That power loss caused a sequence of problems with valves affecting the control of the reactor's temperature, but operators failed to notice the problems for nearly an hour, the report said.
After four hours, operators tried to restore power to the circuit where the short had occurred but did not check first to see that that problem had been solved. It had not been, and when the line was re-energized, another fire resulted. The failed cable, installed in 1986, did not meet design parameters, the report said.
Six months later, another series of equipment failures and operator errors caused another reactor shutdown at the plant. One of the equipment issues had been known to the operators since 2003 but had not been fixed, the report said. In this case, the operators relied on an auxiliary water supply system to provide cooling to the reactor by first disabling safety controls. The goal was to avoid a critical NRC review, the report said.
NRC issued a notice yesterday saying that while it concluded the plant had operated safely last year, commission staff will be stepping up inspections and oversight based on problems surrounding the reactor shutdowns.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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Add CommentAs recovery efforts continue it has become obvious the the earthquake itself caused no significant damage. It was graft and corruption that allowed normal anti tsunami measures to be bypassed that caused the problem. Saving a coupla nickels by putting the diesels and fuel in the way of a Tsunami that was 100% probable given the geological history of the area was something only a corrupt liaison between businessmen and regulatory bureaucrat with a gambling habit would undertake.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would hope we have no such issues in the US.
While modern Gen III reactors would have survived corruptions best efforts, it will be really hard to restart the nuke renaissance with the massive nobrain greenie backlash sure to occur.
Perhaps now somebody (hello Dr. Chu are you listening?) will now get behind the Molten Salt Reactor.
David LeBlanc at the U of Ottawa has redesigned the Molten salt reactor which would resolve all safety and cost issues with nuclear. This tech was actually build and ran in a reactor for many years - even flown around on an airplane. By using existing nuclear waste for fuel it could power the world for hundreds of years.
All it needs is $5B, 5 years, and a place to build em , and factory produced units would be streaming out fast enough to eliminate fossil fuels in 5 years.
Big Oil knows this and has purchased the politicians (yes Dr, Chu we know) to make sure no development happens. Even Bill Gates can't find a place to build to his derivative TerraPower unit.
The Chinese at least have seen the light and are starting a MSR program.
The horrible tragedies in Japan should be responded to by every nation on Earth which has the expertise and resources to do so. The fact is, no place on Earth is immune to natural disasters of that magnitude or greater. Americans must band together to make sure that greedy dirty energy companies can't keep us vulnerable to added threats to our lives and health in order to maximize their windfall profits.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe nuclear emergencies and natural gas and oil fires in Japan should be an object lesson, and dire warning, to every nation. This is why it is of utmost urgency to convert the world's energy systems to TRULY clean, safe, abundant, inexhaustible and FREE energy sources, such as Wind, Sunshine, Geothermal Heat, Tidal/River Flows and Hydrogen/Oxygen extracted from Water using electricity from those sources.
If you think massive conversion to clean energy would be "too expensive", I have 2 questions for you:
1) In your cost/benefit analysis, how do you value the lives of nuclear plant radiation victims, coal miners, drilling rig workers, billions of sea creatures and the millions of people who die from pollution-caused illnesses?
2) If we fail to restore and protect the ONLY known natural life-support system in the Universe, how will you justify that failure to your gasping, wheezing Great-Grandchildren, and what do you think the money saved will be worth to THEM?
If Japan's energy came from self-renewing energy sources, there would be no oil and gas fires or nuclear emergencies adding to the other crises they are facing.
"We will learn from them"? Don't need a rocket scientist or a multi-million dollar study to tell you need to have fail-safe backups of the backups!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only question should be as clearly seen in Japan - what are the contingency plans if one backup fails - is there another backup in place to continue basic uninterrupted operation?
I think its a good idea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbut god knows when,where and how strong an earthquake will be. prevention is ALWAYS better than cure
What about FUSION? Why don't start to be serious- investment, dollars, euros,etc- with fusion reactors? Fision reactors are powerful but dirty and very problematic if accidents. We need a Manhattan Project like for fusion. Or, at least, some funding for the future. Europe is building the ITER More fusion projects please! Sooner or later, it will work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn addition, now Tokyo region experience everyday threats of power cuts in electricity.
Tokyo needs around 60 million watts at most while the current power plants can supply only 30 million watts.
What if you rely too much on nuclear reactors?
Even if they stop safely in an emergent situation,
how society can work until the reactors are recovered
Your comment is non-sensical. By using nuclear waste we can create a clean energy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTheres nothing clean about nuclear waste and its transportation.
m..."spent nuclear fuel" can be recycled....
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