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Nuclear watchdog groups press NRC chairman to release damning internal dissent

Public interest groups call for nuclear regulators to halt the AP1000 reactor approval process  FOE, 16 June 11, Jim Warren, NC WARN, 919-416-5077  Tom Clements, Friends of the Earth, 803-240-7268, tomclements329@cs.com

Citing more design mistakes and omissions, public interest groups call for nuclear regulators to halt the AP1000 reactor approval process

Watchdog groups press NRC chairman to release damning internal dissent

DURHAM, N.C. — In a legal motion filed today, watchdog groups pressed the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to terminate the approval process for the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design. The groups said that a growing list of mistakes and omissions — and a 19th version of the experimental design filed just this week by the company — prove that the “rulemaking” process to approve the ever-changing design is legally “null and void.”

The groups called on the NRC to immediately release Revision 19 and all supporting documents and insisted that the design review cannot go forward until the lessons learned from the Fukushima accident are fully taken into account. They also called for NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko to finally release the uncensored version of a November dissent by the NRC’s lead structural engineer, who has said Westinghouse took shortcuts that could cause the outer shield building to shatter due to natural or deliberate impacts.

Attorney John Runkle sent the motion to Chairman Jaczko on behalf of NC WARN, Friends of the Earth and the AP1000 Oversight Group,¹ noting that the agency’s approval process has broken down following years of corner-cutting by Westinghouse that the NRC failed to confront. Last month the groups resubmitted a stinging 2005 criticism by a former Westinghouse design engineer, who has said that the NRC dodged her complaint that the company improperly scaled up engineering of the AP1000 from a smaller plant model, the AP600, as well as cut other corners in violation of safety regulations.

The unapproved AP1000 design is the basis for the two reactor projects partially begun in the United States — Vogtle Units 3 and 4, by Georgia Power, and V.C. Summer Units 2 and 3, by South Carolina Electric and Gas. Both of those utilities and Westinghouse are pushing for approval of the AP1000 design, causing the public interest groups to assert that legally mandated safety considerations and continuing design problems are taking a back seat to the nuclear industry’s schedule to license the reactor by this fall.

“The AP1000 design approval process would be comical except that the public is being soaked for billions of dollars,” said Jim Warren of NC WARN. “The NRC keeps falling further behind due to Westinghouse’s failures, and all this is before they even begin incorporating safety changes in the U.S. stemming from the Fukushima disaster — which the NRC and even industry leaders admit could be extensive.”

The groups noted that Chairman Jaczko’s own May 20 press statement acknowledged that Westinghouse’s shield building analysis contained flawed calculations and numerous omissions, which they said amplifies questions of credibility and competence raised earlier by the internal experts. They also pressed Chairman Jaczko to release the uncensored version of Dr. John Ma’s formal Nonconcurrence on the shield building, as called for by Congressman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) on March 7.

“The NRC’s failure to release Dr. Ma’s damning report remains a major impediment to an open, transparent review process,” said Attorney John Runkle. ……

http://www.foe.org/public-interest-groups-call-nuclear-regulators-halt-ap1000-reactor-approval-process

September 23, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | opposition to nuclear, USA