Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair: Events Like Fukushima Too Rare to Require Immediate Changes

[ensho]

http://www.truth-out.org/nrc-chair-jaczko-events-fukushima-too-rare-require-immediate-change-licensing-process/1318013371


For those that think nothing has changed in United States' regulation since the Japanese earthquake and tsunami started the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility, think again. The pre-disaster mentality of "What could possibly go wrong?" has been replaced with reassurances that "Stuff like that hardly ever happens!"

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If the disaster in Japan has proven one thing, though, it is that plant operators and nuclear regulators didn't have it covered. Events (or combinations of events) that were either not foreseen or not acknowledged leave Japan scrambling to this day to understand and mitigate an ever-evolving catastrophe that has contaminated land and sea, and exposed yet-untallied thousands of Japanese to dangerous levels of radiation. "As we saw in Fukushima," said Jaczko, "accidents still do happen in this industry. If we are thinking that they can't, we are in a dangerous place."

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It is a posture Jaczko took again and again in what totaled over two-and-a-half hours of Q&A - accidents are very, very rare. Given the history of nuclear power, especially the very recent history, his attitude is as surprising as it is disturbing. Beyond the depressingly obvious major disasters in nuclear power's short history, unusual events and external challenges now manifest almost weekly in America's ageing nuclear infrastructure. The tornado that scrammed Browns Ferry; the flooding at Fort Calhoun; the earthquake that scrammed the reactors and moved storage casks at North Anna and posed problems for ten other facilities; and Hurricane Irene, which required a number of plants to take precautions and scrammed Calvert Cliffs when a transformer blew due to flying debris; all are external hazards that affected US facilities in 2011. Add to that two leaks and an electrical accident at Palisades, stuck valves at Diablo Canyon and failures in the reactor head at oft-troubled Davis Besse, and the notion that dangerous events at nuclear facilities are few and far between doesn't pass the laugh test.

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Chairman Jaczko then added that, while the nuclear industry is generating waste that will require "long, long term storage or isolation," it is not unprecedented to assume this problem can be taken care of by "future generations."

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so they are passing the buck

and not passing the laugh test

Jaczko and his mates will rue the day, sooner rather then later

in the blink of an eye

[WhiteTara]

1. Which is why we need a different source of energy.

It's too rare to prepare for, but the consequences are so dire, we can't afford not to.


fixed typo

[saras]

2. What, me worry?