US nuke plants safer than those in Japan
March 14th, 2011 - 6:47 pm ICT by ANINew York, Mar. 14 (ANI): The US nuclear industry has said that it does not expect an emergency similar to what has taken place in earthquake-cum-tsunami-hit Japan.Even though 23 of the 104 American nuclear reactors are of the same General Electric design as the Fukushima reactors causing the crisis in Japan, a nuclear industry spokesman said there are guidelines in the United States that would decrease the likelihood of such a disaster here.
“We think we’re pretty well equipped,” ABC News quoted Tony Pietrangelo, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry lobbying group, as saying.
“We do plan for blackouts, earthquakes, and tsunamis. Clearly what happened in Japan is well beyond what they were designed for. It’s highly unlikely, but we have a station blackout rule to deal specifically with what happened in Japan. We think we’re pretty well equipped,” he added.
The 23 General Electric-designed reactors are more than 40 years old and are spread throughout the U.S., in cities such as Toms River, New Jersey; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Vernon, Vermont.
To generate electrical power, these nuclear reactors use a boiling water system, known as a boiling water reactor. These reactors continue to produce heat even after fission reactions have stopped. Normally, water pumps are used to cool them down, but the pumps are powered by electricity. (ANI)
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