NRC raises safety concerns about French Areva EPR

The New York Times has reported allegations of safety significant design flaws with nuclear fuel rod cladding, as well as the danger of control rod ejection accidents, at the French Areva "European Pressurized Reactor" targeted at Flammanville on the Normandy Coast. Meanwhile, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has continued to question the safety of interconnections between safety and non-safety "Instrumentation and Control" systems at the Areva "Evolutionary Power Reactor" targeted to be built at Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Maryland, Nine Mile Point on the Lake Ontario shoreline in New York State, and elsewhere. See the NRC press release here.

PSR blasts Congressional proposal to rollback NRC safety regulations

In an op-ed published in The Hill newspaper, Physicians for Social Responsibility's board president, Dr. Jeff Patterson, has compared legislative attempts -- as in the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act discussion draft -- to rollback Nuclear Regulatory Commission safety and licensning regulations for new atomic reactors to the same kinds of mistakes -- speed over safety -- that led to the BP Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe.