forewarned is forestalled.

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2013-01-23 07:30

“forewarned is forestalled"

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/an-early-nuclear-warning-was-i...
January 22, 2013, 11:08 am

An Early Nuclear Warning: Was It for Naught?

Risk analyst, Richard Sherry, wrote that flooding or earthquakes could disrupt both normal grid power and emergency backup power. Mr. Sherry was concerned with a “station blackout,” or S.B.O., which is what eventually happened at Fukushima. He wrote that a station blackout at more than one unit “challenges the ability of the plant operating staff to respond and may require resources (technical staff and equipment) that exceed what is currently available (e.g. diesel driven pumps, portable DC generators) based on the assumption that only a single unit experiences an S.B.O.’’

Had the N.R.C. acted in a timely fashion in August 2007 when Sherry nailed the issue on its head, implementation would be done by now. A commission spokesman, Scott Burnell, cast the 2007 memo differently. Mr. Sherry was not the first to identify “the very small possibility of simultaneous reactor severe accidents at multi-unit sites,’’ he said in an e-mail, and the agency has been pursuing the issue, “incorporating new information as time went on.’’

Action to prepare for a dual meltdown was not a case of “forewarned is forearmed,’’ he said, but more like “forewarned is forestalled.’’

‹ Cs-137 causes heart conduction changes & low cardiac output Strontium 90 in Tokyo ›

Aging reactors “on hold”

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2013-01-23 07:37.

Applications to extend operation of aging Japan reactors put on hold

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2013/01/205562.html
TOKYO, Jan. 23, Kyodo, 14:35 23 January

Japan's nuclear regulatory authority on Wednesday decided not to accept applications from utilities seeking to extend the operation of reactors beyond 30 years under existing procedures, given that new regulations will be introduced in July.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority, a new body launched in September last year, is in the process of overhauling the country's nuclear regulations in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi complex disaster. It plans to require existing reactors to clear the new safety standards once they come into force.