nuclear-news

Safety problems, spent fuel worries, at US nuclear plants

Inspectors Found Preparedness Issues at U.S. Nuclear Plants,  NYTimes.com, By MATTHEW L. WALD May 12, 2011 ROCKVILLE, Md. — Despite repeated assurances that American nuclear reactors are better equipped to deal with natural disasters than their counterparts in Japan, regulators said Thursday that recent inspections found serious problems with some emergency equipment that would have made it unusable in an accident.
In addition, the staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission acknowledged that the agency’s current regulations and disaster plans did not give enough consideration to two factors that had greatly contributed to the continuing Fukushima Daiichi crisis in Japan: simultaneous problems at more than one reactor at the same site and a natural disaster that disrupts roads, electricity and other infrastructure surrounding a plant…….
The Fukushima accident has cast new attention on spent fuel pools; the reason the United States government recommended that Americans stay 50 miles from the plant was damage to the spent fuel pool of Fukushima’s Unit 4, a reactor that had been shut down at the time of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami…….Inspectors Found Preparedness Issues at U.S. Nuclear Plants – NYTimes.com

May 13, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA