Better active today than radioactive tomorrow...

Mar 15, 2011 18:36

... as we used to say back in '78. So we stopped Black Fox: what have we done lately?

Today's link:

http://www.truth-out.org/tokyo-electric-build-us-nuclear-plants-the-no-bs-info-japans-disastrous-nuclear-operators68457

Some of Greg Palast's comments bear repeating:

The failure of emergency systems at Japan's nuclear plants comes as no surprise to those of us who have worked in the field.

Nuclear plants the world over must be certified for what is called "SQ" or "Seismic Qualification." That is, the owners swear that all components are designed for the maximum conceivable shaking event, be it from an earthquake or an exploding Christmas card from al-Qaeda.

The most inexpensive way to meet your SQ is to lie. The industry does it all the time. The government team I worked with caught them once, in 1988, at the Shoreham plant in New York. Correcting the SQ problem at Shoreham would have cost a cool billion, so engineers were told to change the tests from "failed" to "passed."

The company that put in the false safety report? Stone & Webster, now the nuclear unit of Shaw Construction, which will work with TEPCO to build the Texas plant. Lord help us.
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