nuclear-news

Safety requirements are making USA’s nuclear reactors even more expensive

Under Revised Quake Estimates, Dozens of Nuclear Reactors Face Costly Safety Analyses By MATTHEW L. WALD NYT, APRIL 5, 2014 WASHINGTON — Owners of at least two dozen nuclear reactors across the United States, including the operator of Indian Point 2, in Buchanan, N.Y., have told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that they cannot show that their reactors would withstand the most severe earthquake that revised estimates say they might face, according to industry experts.

As a result, the reactors’ owners will be required to undertake extensive analyses of their structures and components. Those are generally sturdier than assumed in licensing documents, but owners of some plants may be forced to make physical changes, and are likely to spend about $5 million each just for the analysis…….

he Nuclear Regulatory Commission is presuming, for the time being at least, that plants built to the old standard do not present any immediate risk. But critics say that contradicts one of the recommendations made by a task force of commission senior staff members after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan three years ago, which caused three reactors to melt down at Fukushima Daiichi.

One recommendation was that the commission “re-evaluate and upgrade” the original design requirements.

Senator Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, a longtime critic of the commission, said in a statement: “The N.R.C. should be demanding implementation of seismic safety upgrades it called for following the Fukushima meltdowns, not merely more study of nuclear reactors that it knows are clearly at higher risk than was previously believed. What is needed is action to secure at-risk nuclear reactors, not merely more reports.”……..

Two industry experts said that across the central and eastern United States, plants at 24 sites reported that the new earthquake threat was larger than what they were designed to face. The commission has not released a total yet.

But Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the commission, said many reactors fell into that category, so many that there were not enough engineers to analyze them all simultaneously. The commission will group them in priority, he said…….http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/nyregion/dozens-of-nuclear-reactors-must-prove-safety-under-revised-quake-estimates.html?hpw&rref=science&_r=0

April 7, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA