New
York Times: Five years before the emergency vents at the
Fukushima Daiichi power plant were disabled by a power failure,
engineers at a reactor in Minnesota warned US regulators about
the same issue, writes Matthew Wald for the
New York Times. Anthony Sarrack told staff members of
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that the venting
systems at his reactor had serious design flaws: They were
dependent on electric power, which could be cut in an
emergency, and on human workers, who could become
incapacitated. More automatic, passive systems are needed.
Sarrack's proposal was rejected by operations department
officials at his company because they wanted direct control
over the reactor. The NRC considered Sarrack's warning but
decided against making changes at the time, although they are
now studying the events at Fukushima Daiichi with an eye toward
reducing overall risk, including making vents more passive
without sacrificing manually controlled systems.
