Activists petition NRC saying Westinghouse's new reactor is flawed
Anti-nuclear power activists petitioned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission yesterday to investigate their claims of design flaws in new Westinghouse Electric Co.'s reactors that could lead to radiation emissions.
Both the company and the regulator rejected claims the yet-to-be-built reactor would likely corrode and said regular inspections would catch any deterioration early on.
The AP1000 Oversight Group — named for the "Advanced Passive" Westinghouse AP1000 design — said the commission should suspend license approval of the nuclear reactor until the design "defects" are corrected.
The group alleges the space between the outer shield building and the structure that contains the reactor vessel lets in air and water. That would accelerate any corrosion that might start, the group claims, and could lead to a radiation-emitting hole in the vessel.
"In the event that the containment is breached by corrosion, the chimney-like design may draw a significant volume of radioactivity-contaminated air into the environment, causing a major threat to the public," the group said in a letter to the regulator.
Currently, 14 of the AP1000 reactors are slated to be built and operated at seven power plants in the Southeast, assuming Westinghouse gets final design approvals from the commission. Westinghouse expect the first reactors to come on line in 2016.
The AP1000 design makes it difficult for inspectors to detect the beginning of corrosion, said the petitioners, who include the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and Friends of the Earth.
"We strongly dispute their conclusions," said Vaughn Gilbert, spokesman for Cranberry-based Westinghouse. The 1 3/4-inch thick steel in the containment building is designed to "preclude corrosion," he said.
"But in the highly unlikely event corrosion were to begin, a regular inspection would identify it before it could remotely become an issue," he said.
Gilbert said the AP1000 design conforms to all American Society of Mechanical Engineers codes covering decades of pressure-vessel applications. He said the design was reviewed by experts at universities, including Penn State and Purdue, as well as by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said the commission would consider the group's comments as a normal part of the design review. He said the commission always weighs corrosion, accident and maintenance factors in any review of a reactor design.
"The design Westinghouse has laid out includes a several-foot-wide gap between the containment and the shield building," said Burnell. "That space certainly allows for inspections we deem necessary to preclude the possibility of corrosion that could cause a hole in the containment building."
Westinghouse is working on revisions to the AP1000 in response to issues raised by the commission in October. It directed the company to modify the design to make sure the outer shield building could withstand the impact of a jetliner, as well as earthquakes, hurricanes or tornadoes. Gilbert said the company will submit the last phases of those revisions in the next couple of weeks.
