US regulators have ignored expert safety advice in an attempt to cut corners and fast track the completion of a $4 billion nuclear fuel facility currently under construction near Aiken, South Carolina.
Nuclear disarmament treaties have resulted in a large surplus of weapons-grade plutonium. The US government has initiated moves to build and operate a mixed oxide fuel fabrication facility (MOFFF) that will convert recovered plutonium into fuel rods for use in civil nuclear power generation. However, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has hushed up a highly critical assessment of the plant’s engineering by its top independent reviewer.
The claims are made by Dan Tedder, Emeritus Professor of Chemical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. Tedder, who was hired by the NRC as an independent technical reviewer in April 2007, told The Chemical Engineer that basic chemical process design information was incomplete and presented serious safety implications.
“When they go operational there will be safety problems”, says Tedder. “The documentation provided in the license application is very superficial and lacks the type of technical depth I would expect. It isn’t consistent with reasonable and generally-accepted good engineering practice – I’ve never seen such a crazy system.”Whilst the NRC has refuted the accusations as “baseless”, it has refused access to the disputed documents on the grounds that they are designated ‘Proprietary or Official Use Only-Security Reacted Information’, a move that does little to allay concerns over the safety of the plant.
It’s been many years since I was involved with nuclear power generation. I’m still a firm supporter of the method – if safety standards are met – if the pork is pared from the payback to builders and operators.
Sounds like not much has changed.
I’m shocked I tell you, SHOCKED !!!
Shocked that something like this could / would happen with the current administration.
And some people are advocating four more years of the same crap ???
#1, not only that, but last night the RNC speakers were yakking on about LESS government! Sure! Let’s just allow the drug companies and energy industry to regulate themselves, shall we? We’d all be dead and then there would be a lot less need for pesky government oversight.
JH: Yes, the rules are indeed about to change. The Elephants are on their way out, and we like it.
# 4 James Hill said:
“Angry liberals, your opinions are meaningless because of your hate. Didn’t you noticed the rules changed?”
? Which rules? What change? Or do you mean the Robber Baron take on the Golden Rule: Who has the gold makes the rule?
Homer Simpson lives. No need to follow the rules. Pay some one to check the work, then ignore their findings. Its so much cheaper. Those responsible can say it was reviewed if there is a problem. A win-win, for them. `More profits, less responsibility.
Profits trump safety. Done on time trumps done right. No doubt there are monetary penalties for being late. That is easily measured. Hard to argue with the calendar. Done wrong is endlessly debatable.
Just keep the donuts coming.
One might not know from reading this that the initial design, regulatory approvals, and contracts for the MOFFF are from the hallowed Clinton administration.
A bit more seriously, I’m in favor of construction of the MOFFf facility. Yes, MOFFF has been under design and construction for a long time. The question here is:
Whether the original design was correct, but contractors didn’t follow the design when constructing the facility.
Or
Whether the design was faulty in the first place, but was faithfully followed by contractors that should have known better.
We can’t really tell which happened from here, but when has that stopped any of us from speculating?
John Dvorak has a chemical engineering degree, as do I. From what I read in the article (from a British chemical engineering society, incidentally, not the US AICHE), the design might have been faulty from the start, then shortcut even more.
John, do you read the article that way?
Ah, so this is what Gore’s “Global Warming” scare is really about. Build more nuke plants to use up the nuke warhead surplus. Yeah, you’d have to make up a compelling reason to get the nation to quickly abandon its old “not in my backyard” resistance to nuke plants. This scare, and the oil wars, are the “Pearl Harbor” of our time.
The US use to be isolationist before 1941. That meant, not getting involved in other nations’ problems. Especially in their wars. Then FDR poked Japan with his stick enough to make them attack a remote island (that wasn’t even a State then) in the pacific, that was a naval base. And that was what he used to get the US into WW2. And primarily into the European theater of it. The war with Japan was secondary. Sounds a lot like this war in Iraq. While the Pakistan one is lesser.
So once again, we’re being steered by contrived events and spin. But that’s how you have to deal with a so-called democratic nation. You mislead them on the fact, so they’ll vote the course you want. And the media conglomerates can’t be counted on to point out the lies. They’re often party to spreading them.
W’s legacy is growing.