nuclear-news

The design assessment of the new European pressurised reactor (EPR) developed by EDF and its nuclear specialist Areva is important, because it is key to determining whether the public accepts the safety of Hinkley. It is disturbing that the few detailed answers obtained about who exactly undertook that review had to come by way of a Freedom of Information request, not by an immediate and voluntary statement from the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR)………

• Unsurprisingly, independent experts question how thorough the oversight really was – and whether a whole load of problems have been parked to one side to be tackled later on. A senior inspector at the Finnish nuclear regulator STUK, which has been struggling for much longer to assess an EPR reactor for a domestic plant, says pointedly: “I don’t know how they (the ONR) did it so fast.”

   

   

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• And for such fast movers, it is odd that the ONR could not provide data on whether any of its inspectors had previously worked for EDF or Areva on the groundsbecause the files were in “deep storage”. That excuse would not have passed muster during the cold war. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/05/nuclear-industry-secrets-edf