NRC panel: U.S. nuclear plants are safe

[LAGC]

A federal task force looking at possible changes in nuclear plant safety regulations after Fukushima won't provide final recommendations for another 60 days, but a month into the study, members declared U.S. plants safe.

"No issues have been identified to date that would call into question the overall safety of U.S. nuclear power plants," said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, quoting agency officials in charge of 90-day review.

The task force did say that plant-specific issues, which could be outlined as early as today, have been identified, including malfunctioning equipment and discrepancies in training.

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said Tuesday during a visit to Indian Point that he expected some changes in the way the nation's 104 nuclear plants are regulated, but would wait for the agency-staffed panel to give its final report.

http://www.lohud.com/article/20110513/NEWS01/105130344/NRC-panel-U-S-nuclear-plants-safe?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|News|p

Seems the chances of a situation like that which happened in Japan happening here is... near-zero.

[dkf]

1. I bet this is what Tepco told the people of Japan.

[LAGC]

4. Bad analogy.

This is the regulatory commission (a government body) speaking, not a corporate body.

Unlike here in America, there were warnings about the potential dangers of some of the reactors in Japan, just no one heeded them.

[mrbscott19]

2. The air at ground zero was safe too.....

[Xicano]

3. Good, then have all of them put their money where their mouth is and move next door to one.

Unless until they do, they're full of shit as far as I'm concerned.

[kristopher]

5. "the chances of a situation like that which happened in Japan happening here"

Statement one, "the chances of a situation like that which happened in Japan happening here are near zero".

Statement two, "the chances of a situation like that which happened in" Chernobyl "happening in" Japan "are near zero".

Statement one is less true than statement two and where did we end up?

[LAGC]

6. If only that were true...

Japan's risks were never near-zero. Many people in Japan raised red flags well in advance warning of tsunami dangers, just no one wanted to listen. TEPCO was greedy and short-sighted, so they built along the coast anyway, which was just plain stupid.

Where have any serious warnings been raised about any U.S. plants? Tsunami danger? Not even on the horizon.

Modern nuclear plants can survive severe earthquakes, just not a rush of water damaging their cooling pumps.

[kristopher]

10. A level 7++ can happen ANYWHERE. Many people raise red flags about fission everywhere.

You are practicing tunnel vision.

You have blinders on.

You are looking at the problem through rose colored glass.

You are fooling yourself.

You are deluding yourself.

You are kidding yourself.

The problem is that the cost of failure is so large that safety systems require a degree of complexity that is not possible to maintain at their designed level performance.

Each "fix" also creates new opportunities for failure and the totality of the endeavor achieves a level of complexity that makes true risk analysis impossible.

Nuclear fission is not "safe".

[LAGC]

12. Well, you do make one good point.

Isn't it kind of silly to have declared this incident in Japan a Level 7 (maximum) alert when it can still get much worse?

Maybe they need to go back to the drawing board and re-design the leveling system from the ground up.

[FBaggins]

7. Since both statements are true, it's hard to call one "less true".

"What happened" in Japan was the result of a monster earthquake/tsunami event... the chances of which ARE "near zero" in the U.S.

"What happened" at Chernobyl has not been repeated. And the reasons why it hasn't been repeated are exactly the reasons that the west said it was so unlikely after Chernobyl.

[Fledermaus]

9. WHERE'S THE CORIUM NOW?!?!?!?!?

[FBaggins]

11. You're something of a broken record, aren't you?

What do you imagine your point is? Just trying to draw attention to our earlier fevered ramblings about cores burning through to the water table and exploding... killing huge numbers thousands of miles away?

There isn't any reason to think that any corium has escaped containment.

[Fledermaus]

13. Careful for what you wish for, you've been wrong 100% of the time so far!

[FBaggins]

14. And yet despite repeated challenges...

...you cant' provide any evidence of that claim?

What a shocker. :sarcasm:

Note - I'm not the one grasping at any thread of bad news hoping THIS time I'll finally be right.

[txlibdem]

8. We are learning from Fukushima - NRC is reviewing the backup power issue at US nuclear power plants

None of the lessons of Fukushima should be overlooked but the biggest lesson is that nuclear power plants designed in the 1960s (as the Fukushima reactors were) are nowhere near as safe as the Generation III and Gen III+, which themselves are far less safe as the Generation IV power plants that are being tested by Idaho National Lab (INO).