nuclear-news

The task force recommended some specific improvements and some sweeping reforms, like integrating decades of regulations and informal changes in operating practices into a single framework that systematically addresses the full range of safety risks. For example, some equipment stored at nuclear reactors in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — like portable pumps, hoses, extra batteries and extra sources of energy — is held in places that are not protected from flooding, and the items are not regularly tested, the task force found.

The study recommended periodic re-evaluation of earthquake risk as an understanding of geology evolves, and rethinking the design of vents that have been added to some reactors to control excess pressures and get rid of hydrogen. When nuclear fuel overheated at Fukushima Daiichi, it led to a hydrogen explosion despite the presence of vents similar to those at reactors of the same type in this country.

The nuclear industry argues, though, that not enough is known now about the vents at Fukushima or the recent sequence of events there to justify changes in the United States.

The issue of how urgently to move is acquiring a partisan character. ….