nuclear-news

Hard to get money for the prevention of nuclear accidents

the challenge the NRC has is, when something happens, it’s easy to convince people they need to spend money, prevent the next one. But when something hasn’t happened yet and it’s just a postulated event or a hypothetical disaster, it’s more  difficult to get people to pony up millions of dollars to fix the hypothetical problem….

Are U.S. Nuclear Plants Ready for a Fukushima-Like Meltdown?  PBS Newshour 25 May 12, When Chairman Gregory Jaczko resigned from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week, reports suggested it was linked to battles within the commission over safety requirements. Miles O’Brien reports on how government regulators in the U.S. set the safety bar for nuclear plants……

DAVE LOCHBAUM, Union of Concerned Scientists: The biggest concern I
have had with the NRC over the years I have been monitoring them is
lack of consistency.

MILES O’BRIEN: Dave Lochbaum is a nuclear engineer who spent 17 years working for the industry before publicly blowing the whistle on safety concerns and joining the Union of Concerned Scientists, which just
released an eye-opening report on the NRC and nuclear plant safety in
the U.S. in 2011.

It documents 15 near-misses, many occurring because reactor owners
either tolerated known safety problems or took inadequate measures to
correct them; problems with safety-related equipment that increased
the risk of damage to the nuclear core; recognized, but unresolved
problems that often cause significant safety-related events at nuclear
power plants or increase their severity.

And it says NRC inspectors all too often focus just on a specific
problem, not its underlying cause.

DAVE LOCHBAUM: I think the challenge the NRC has is, when something
happens, it’s easy to convince people they need to spend money,
prevent the next one. But when something hasn’t happened yet and it’s
just a postulated event or a hypothetical disaster, it’s more
difficult to get people to pony up millions of dollars to fix the
hypothetical problem….
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/jan-june12/nrc_05-25.html

May 26, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general