Chinese scientists urge better nuke safety

[kristopher]

Chinese scientists urge better nuke safety

BEIJING, June 22 (UPI) --...Writing in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences say that despite having 40 percent of the world's proposed nuclear power plants, the country lacks an independent regulatory agency and sufficient staff to keep pace with nuclear power development.

Scientist Qiang Wang and colleagues hailed the Chinese government announcement it would suspend approvals for nuclear power plant development across the country following the disaster at Japan's Fukushima nuclear facility.

..."However, the open question remains how the Chinese government is going to improve nuclear energy safety. China has almost become the nuclear industry's living laboratory for new reactor designs and the learning that comes from actual construction."

China's nuclear administrative systems are fragmented among multiple agencies and lack a fully independent safety and regulatory agency, they said, and the country is behind the United States, France and Japan when it comes to staff and budget to oversee operational reactors.

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011/06/22/Chinese-scientists-urge-better-nuke-safety/UPI-95931308781035/?rel=47291314637455

[Kennah]

1. Sounds like a warning of 8 on the International Nuclear Event Scale

[bananas]

2. It's a recipe for disaster. nt

[kristopher]

3. Their behavior following the high speed train accident

...certainly wasn't reassuring, was it?

The did finally unearth the portions of the train they'd buried, but it is hard to have any confidence in such a largescale, rapidly undertaken nuclear program when it is being accomplished in that type of regulatory environment.

[bananas]

4. That was shocking, I couldn't believe what I was reading.

Just bury it and pretend nothing happened - wtf???
No, their behaviour was not reassuring at all.

And articles like this make me wonder what kind of concrete they've been using on their reactors:

http://topics.scmp.com/news/china-news-watch/article/Judgment-day-fears-for-high-speed-rail-tracks

'Judgment day' fears for high-speed rail tracks

Stephen Chen
Jan 10, 2011

<snip>

According to a study by the First Survey and Design Institute of China Railways in 2008, coal-fired power plants on the mainland could produce enough high-quality fly ash for the construction of 100 kilometres of high-speed railway tracks a year.

But more than 1,500 kilometres of track have been laid annually for the past five years. This year 4,500 kilometres of track will be laid with the completion of the world's longest high-speed railway line, between Beijing and Shanghai. Fly ash required for that 1,318-kilometre line would be more than that produced by all the coal-fired power plants in the world.

<snip>

The use of low-quality fly ash would threaten the safety of rail passengers and "judgment day" might come sooner than expected, Zhu said.

"Quality problems with Chinese high-speed railways will arise in five years," he said. "I'm not talking about small problems, but big problems. Small problems such as occasional cracks and slips that delay trains for hours have already occurred. Big problems that will postpone an entire line for days, if not weeks, will come soon.

"When that happens, the miracle of Chinese high-speed rail will be reduced to dust."

<snip>

Reports about the widespread use of low-quality fly ash in high-speed railway construction began surfacing in mainland newspapers in 2007. Undercover journalists followed fly ash convoys from power plants to railway construction sites in various provinces. Their reports generated a public outcry, prompting the Ministry of Railways to team up with the Communist Party's Propaganda Department in ordering newspapers to kill all reports about low-quality fly ash related to high-speed railways. Some journalists received threats. Some lost their jobs.

<snip>

[kristopher]

5. Yes, applications like rail line foundations and nuclear plants can hide...

...hide the effects of corruption and the resulting poor materials/workmanship for decades.

China seems destined for "interesting times".