IAEA : Older nuclear plants pose safety challenge

[kristopher]

bananas Thu Sep-23-10 05:46 PM
The Bathtub Curve
Nuclear power plants follow a bathtub curve, and these plants are starting to run up the far end of the bathtub curve, where the probability of multiple simultaneous component failures resulting in catastrophic failure skyrockets.
http://www.weibull.com/hotwire/issue21/hottopics21.htm

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=259302&mesg_id=259312

IAEA : Older nuclear plants pose safety challenge
REUTERS

VIENNA -- Eighty percent of the world's nuclear power plants are more than 20 years old, which could impact safety, a draft U.N. report says a year after Japan's Fukushima disaster.

Many operators have begun programs, or expressed their intention, to run reactors beyond their planned design lifetimes, said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) document which has not yet been made public.

"There are growing expectations that older nuclear reactors should meet enhanced safety objectives, closer to that of recent or future reactor designs," the Vienna-based U.N. agency's annual Nuclear Safety Review said.

"There is a concern about the ability of the ageing nuclear fleet to fulfill these expectations and to continue to economically and efficiently support member states' energy requirements."

The Fukushima tragedy ...

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201203130070