nuclear-news

The problem of the nuclear industry being its own regulator

This is the situation not only in Japan but in Canada, the United States and other countries, Edwards said. “There are few independent nuclear experts in the world. Everyone either works in the industry or used to and are now regulators,”

Who controls nuclear control agencies? Japan’s earthquake caused a nuclear crisis which could be repeated in other countries .. Al Jazeera Stephen Leahy 23 Mar 2011“….. Regulatory problems  Japan’s environmental activists have long complained about the inadequacy in government regulation and a culture within the industry’s management of covering up mistakes.The problem is that nuclear power companies like TEPCO and the government regulators are “essentially one and the same,” says Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, a civil society organisation.This is the situation not only in Japan but in Canada, the United States and other countries, Edwards said. “There are few independent nuclear experts in the world. Everyone either works in the industry or used to and are now regulators,” he said.

Canada has a large government-owned nuclear industry with 17 reactors providing 15 per cent of the country’s electricity. The Canadian government has sold its CANDU nuclear reactors to several countries, including Argentina and, most recently, China.Canada’s nuclear plants have been plagued with costly repairs and shutdowns, mainly due to leaking pipes. There have not been any fatalities, but repair costs have been in the billions of dollars.

The industry and regulators are not interested in educating the public or policymakers, Edwards says. “They never explain that radioactivity can never be turned off. They don’t explain that even when a reactor is shut down it still generates an enormous amount of heat that has to be removed to prevent a meltdown,” he stressed.A clear example is TEPCO’s Fukushima I reactor number 4, which had been shut down since December, but its used or spent fuel in storage pools threatened to go critical because the cooling system failed after the earthquake…..

Who controls nuclear control agencies? – Features – Al Jazeera English

March 24, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, secrets,lies and civil liberties