Skip to main content

Rep. Joe Barton Visits Comanche Peak

joe-barton And liked what he saw. Rep. Barton (R-Texas) wanted to visit the plant in his district because he worried it might not be safe in case of a large earthquake. It went well:

"Our safety systems in the United States are much more robust than in Japan," said Barton, R-Arlington and former chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "If there's ever an earthquake, I want to be in the control room at Comanche Peak. ... It can withstand the largest earthquake we could have and then some."

Which doesn’t mean Barton doesn’t want some more – official - assurances.

But Barton said he'd like to convene a committee hearing in Congress so members can learn about safety plans in place at all U.S. nuclear power plants.

He said he doesn't believe that support for these facilities will wane, despite Japan's problem, if Congress and plant operators "can continue to show these plants are safe, new designs are safe and safety regulations are being enforced."

And I’m reasonably sure that plant operators will be able to do that.

The significance of the Japan earthquake is not lost on Comanche Peak:

"The nuclear industry in the states is taking a lot of actions, keeping a close eye on what's going on in Japan," said Rafael Flores, senior vice president and chief nuclear officer at the plant. "There will be a lot of lessons learned from it."

Flores pointed out differences between Japan's plants and Comanche Peak. In Japan, fuel oil is stored above ground, boiling-water reactors produce steam and spent fuel pools are above ground. At Comanche Peak, he said, diesel is stored underground, pressurized-water capacitors avoid the use of steam and spent fuel pools are in a separate building, at ground level.

"We believe we have a large margin of safety," he said. "But we are always looking to make it larger."

And I should note that writer Anna Tinsley brought out all these points. Although the public knows that nuclear energy plants are not tin cans with uranium in them, finer distinctions are harder to communicate – and grasp – and Tinsley, with Flores, does a good job of this. Worth a read as a fair, good bit of reporting.

Rep. Joe Barton.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin