Wednesday, March 06, 2013

It can't happen here

That's what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said with regards to Fukushima; to wit, "sequence of events such as the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident is unlikely to occur in the US. Therefore, continued licensing activities [of US reactors] do not pose an imminent threat to public health and safety."  Yet, the reactors that failed in Japan were built by General Electric, and 23 similar Mark I reactors were in operation at 16 sites in 12 US states. In addition, another eight Mark 2 reactors with similar design problems are located at five sites in four states.

The NRC is moving very slowly on this, largely because of the costs of additional safety to the nuclear industry.  Fukushima happened two years ago.  Nothing has been done yet and there really is no clear view as to whether anything will be done.

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