Markey: Back-up generators failed during tests at many US nuclear plants <!-- #bdc_EMTOF_form .innerContainer --><!-- bdc_emailWidget -->


By Beth Daley
BOSTON GLOBE STAFF
Nuclear plant emergency generators that failed in Japan following the tsunami, sparking that country’s nuclear crisis, also failed during tests at Seabrook Station and at least 68 other nuclear plants in the last eight years, a new report by Massachusetts Congressman Edward Markey’s office shows.
 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations also do not require emergency diesel generators to be operational when there is no fuel in a nuclear reactor core – even though it could leave spent fuel pools without any back-up cooling system in case power is lost, according to the report released this morning.
 
In Japan, large amounts of radioactive material escaped from a spent fuel pool at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant after cooling systems failed.
 
 
NRC commissioners are receiving an update this morning from staff on nuclear plant reviews stemming from the Japanese problems and Markey, a staunch nuclear opponent, released the report in hopes of convincing the agency not to issue new license extensions for nuclear power plants until it finishes reviews and upgrades of its safety requirements.
 
 
Since the March earthquake and tsunami that triggered the Japan nuclear crisis there, the agency has approved 20-year license renewals at Vermont Yankee near the Massachusetts border and three reactors at an Arizona plant, saying they were rigorously reviewed.
 
 
“..An examination of NRC regulations demonstrates that flawed assumptions and under-estimation of safety risks are currently an inherent part of the NRC regulatory program, due to a long history of decisions made by prior Commissions or by the NRC staff that have all too often acquiesced to industry requests for a weakening of safety standards,’’ the report reads. “It would be unwise to move forward with any pending licensing actions before the NRC fully completes its review and upgrades of its safety requirements.”
- Boston Globe