Beyond Nuclear and co-petitioners demand NRC come clean on flawed "fixes" at Mark I reactors

In a press statement released on May 18, 2011, Beyond Nuclear demands that the NRC make public how many U.S. Mark I reactors have, or have not installed the venting system that demonstrably failed at Fukushima. Following on an exposé in the New York Times and the April 13, 2011 filing of its own emergency enforcement petition to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Beyond Nuclear is renewing its call on the NRC to suspend the operating licenses of 23 Mark I units in the United States. Twenty one of the US Mark I reactors are nearly identical to the Fukushima reactors that exploded into shambles and that are leaking radioactivity into the air and sea. All 23 units installed the same experimental containment venting system that failed at Fukushima.

Beyond Nuclear charges that while some U.S. Mark I reactors possess the same now demonstrated failed venting systems, the NRC is aware that other Mark I  reactor operators may not even have installed – and some may even have uninstalled – the now controversial venting systems. If the venting systems had worked as designed they would have prevented extensive damage to containment from the devastating hydrogen explosions witnessed at the Fukushima nuclear plant.

“The NRC left the retrofit of this experimental venting system to the voluntarily discretion of the US reactor operators,” said Paul Gunter, Director of Reactor Oversight at Beyond Nuclear. “Now that this experimental containment vent is demonstrated to have failed at Fukushima, we need to know who installed it at US plants, who didn’t and the justification for the continued operation of these deeply flawed and dangerous reactors,” he said.

Read the full Beyond Nuclear petition.

Update on May 20, 2011 by admin

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has formally noticed its Petition Review Board meeting with Beyond Nuclear and co-petitioners for June 8, 2011 from 2 to 4 PM EST. A toll free telephone bridgeline will be made available by public and media participation.

Anti-nuclear "Cassandras" finally being listened to?

In an article entitled "Japanese Officials Ignored or Concealed Dangers," the New York Times has reported that Japanese anti-nuclear activists, lawyers, and university professors have warned about earthquake and tsunami risks at various Japanese nuclear power plants for decades. Their warnings and lawsuits have often fallen on deaf ears, however, including in courts of law also under the influence of a politically powerful nuclear power industry. 

More insights into the three meltdowns at Fukushima from Dr. Chris Busby

Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, and Graham Nash call for action against new nuclear loan guarantees

Nash, Raitt, and Browne, flanked by environmental and congressional allies, at a Nukefree.org press conference against nuclear loan guarantees on Capitol Hill, 2007"We may be on the brink...of stopping the US nuclear industry from building new reactors," write musicians Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, and Graham Nash in a new posting on the Nukefree.org website. Join their call by phoning your two U.S. Senators and your U.S. Representative via the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and urging them to block the $36 billion in new nuclear loan guarantees proposed by the Obama administration in the Fiscal Year 2012 federal budget, with the first congressional subcommittee votes expected to happen in the next few weeks.

Venting failures at Fukushima Dai-Ichi highlight identical risks at nearly two dozen U.S. reactors

The New York Times, in an article entitled "In Japan Reactor Failings, Danger Signs for the U.S.," has reported that the hardened vent retrofits on the Unit 1, Unit 2, and Unit 3 General Electric Mark 1 Boiling Water Reactors failed to reduce pressure (by releasing radioactive steam to the environment) due to the lack of electricity from earthquake and tsunami damage. This led to hydrogen gas build up, and then massive explosions that damaged or utterly destroyed the three reactor buildings. On April 13th, Beyond Nuclear filed an emergency enforcement petition calling upon NRC to immediately suspend the operating licenses at 21 U.S. GE BWR Mark 1s.