U.S. nuclear regulator raises questions after Fukushima
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Inspections at U.S. nuclear plants following the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi facility have raised questions about their readiness to deal with extreme events, the head of the nuclear safety regulator said on Wednesday.
Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, did not specify what issues were uncovered, but said nuclear plants will have until June 10 to confirm they are complying with rules put in place after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Inspection reports on the plants will be released by next week, an NRC spokesman said. In the meantime, the NRC has issued a "bulletin" to the 104 U.S. plants requesting information on their strategies and disaster readiness.
"It's just a document that will ask licensees to provide information about some of the things we found as part of our inspections of the last several weeks," Jaczko told reporters after a speech to the Nuclear Energy Assembly.
"As with any program we inspect, we find areas where there are needs for improvement and the bulletin is our response to ensure those issues get addressed," Jaczko said.
The effort is part of a sweeping review of the U.S. industry in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami that wrecked the Fukushima plant two months ago, causing radiation to spew into the air and ocean.
The accident is one of the worst on record, and has prompted many countries to step back from expansion plans for nuclear power.
Senior NRC staff looking at possible safety improvements for U.S. plants will brief the five commissioners at the helm of the agency on their early findings at a public meeting on Thursday.
Some areas of focus include backup power plans during blackouts caused by earthquakes, floods and other severe events, and the ability of plants to keep reactors and pools holding radioactive waste cool when power is lost.
TWO DEADLINES FOR PLANTS
The new bulletin from the NRC requires nuclear plants to confirm by June 10 that they have strategies and equipment in place to deal with extreme events and have staff trained to carry out plans.
By July 11, plants must also certify how they are maintaining, testing and controlling equipment, how they adjust their strategies over time, and how they are working with local organizations on emergency planning.
The ability to withstand attacks has also emerged as a central issue in Europe, where the European Commission's president on Wednesday called for more testing.
INDUSTRY "WELL ON ITS WAY"
An industry self-regulatory body recently completed site reviews on the same issue, and the industry "already is well on its way" to pulling together the information requested by the NRC, said Tony Pietrangelo, chief nuclear officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute, in a statement.
The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, or INPO, found issues with where plants store and place equipment, and said plants with more than one reactor need to improve their ability to respond to emergencies affecting all the units.
INPO's president, James Ellis, urged the industry to work hard to respond to the challenge posed by the disaster, but did not provide details of the internal reviews.
"We cannot resort to business as usual," Ellis told the nuclear conference, calling for global safety standards for the industry.
"We must resist the temptation to minimize and differentiate the events in Japan to our own industry. The lessons are both real and immediate for all of us," he said.
(Editing by Sofina Mirza-Reid and Dale Hudson)