Brussels, 14/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - According to Greenpeace, there are gaps in the cross-cutting report by national and European Commission experts on the safety of European nuclear power plants. The environmental NGO had commissioned independent consultants to analyse the results of stress tests, to be set out before the European energy ministers on 15 June.
Alarming shortfalls in back-up power. Greenpeace researchers consider that, in the event of disaster, multiple reactors would be relying on single emergency diesel generators. Some plants would thus be unable to handle challenging earthquake or flood conditions. Also, radiation shielding is woefully inadequate in dangerous spent fuel storage across the continent.
Multiple disaster scenarios. Those carrying out stress tests have ignored disaster scenarios such as plane crashes, and all testers ignored emergency evacuation plans, despite the fact that plants are as close as 10 km to European cities.
Little consistency in findings. This makes it difficult, or even impossible, to make comparisons between plants. Roger Spautz, a Greenpeace activist, said the tests carried out by national and Commission experts, the findings of which are supposed to restore confidence, in fact have the opposite effect. “Difficult questions have quietly been dropped, including those relating to the kind of disaster scenarios we saw in Japan. If they want a genuine picture of nuclear risk, governments should send back the report with a note saying 'more stress needed'”, he explained.
The regulators' report is the third and last stage in stress tests conducted in the wake of the Fukushima disaster that hit Japan in March 2011 (see EUROPE 10612). The final report from the European Commission is to be presented this autumn. (EL/transl.jl)