Future of America's Nuclear Power Plants

[PamW]

20. That's for the Japanese to call...

First, we recognize that the main reasons Fukushima happened was due to defects in the Japanese plants that the USA doesn't allow. The Japanese allowed the fuel tanks for the diesel generators to be above ground at dockside for easy filling. In the USA, the tanks are required to be buried. The Japanese allow the diesel generators themselves to be in non-watertight basements. In the USA, the diesel generators either have to be significantly above grade or housed below grade in water-tight vaults. When the Japanese attempted to fly in portable generators, they couldn't be connected to the plant because they had the wrong connectors. In the USA, the reactor licensees are required to have compatible generators ready off-site, and they are required to drill in flying them in. If they have incompatible connectors, you'll find that out on your first drill.

So the US plants don't have the deficiencies that the Japanese plants do. We anticipated those problems without having to have an accident first. Still, it is only prudent to examine the Japanese accident to see if there was anything that happened that we missed.

As for what to do with Fukushima; that's up to the Japanese, just as what to do with the even worse problem of Chernobyl, where you had the reactor innards open to the environment; was handled in a manner chosen by the Russians that built it.

PamW