23 U.S. nuclear reactors share GE design with Japan

March 14th, 2011, 8:53 am
by Chris Knap, Investigations Editor


There are 23 nuclear power plants operating in the U.S. using the same General Electric Mark 1 reactors as the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 that suffered a hydrogen explosion on Saturday and then again early Monday, according to a fact sheet just released by the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a Maryland-based nuclear power watchdog group.

This design, a General Electric Mark I, has been criticized by nuclear experts and even Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff for decades as being susceptible to explosion and containment failure.

According to NIRS, 35 of the 110 operational nuclear power reactors in the United States, are boiling water reactors (BWR). General Electric is the sole designer and manufacturer of BWRs in the United States. The BWR’s distinguishing feature is that the reactor vessel serves as the boiler for the nuclear steam supply system. The steam is generated in the reactor vessel by the controlled fissioning of enriched uranium fuel which passes directly to the turbogenerator to generate electricity.

The General Electric Mark 1 uses a smaller pressure suppression containment conceived as a cost-saving alternative to the larger reinforced concrete containments marketed by competitors.

San Onofre’s reactors are Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) designed by Combustion Engineering. The PWRs use pressurized water as coolant instead of boiling the water directly in the containment vessel.

The reactors at Diablo Canyon, in Northern California, are also PWR’s, designed by Westinghouse.

A chilling NIRS fact sheet from 1996 essentially predicts what has happened in Japan in the last few days: Read the rest of this entry »

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