Nuclear watchdog points to gaps in U.S. safety regulations

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/nuclear-watchdog-points-to-gaps-in-us-safety-regulations/2011/05/13/AFLddq2G_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage

By Brian Vastag, Friday, May 13, 1:52 PM
Gaps in safety regulations have left U.S. nuclear power plants vulnerable to accidents when they lose power to their cooling systems, a prominent nuclear watchdog group told a congressional hearing Friday.

If U.S. nuclear power plants should lose primary and backup power — as happened in March at the Fukushima Daiichi facility in Japan — batteries are designed to kick in and prevent nuclear fuel from melting.

But some plants keep just four hours of battery power, which would force workers in a disaster to play “a very high-stakes version of ‘beat the clock,’ ” David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists told members of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. “If they restore normal or backup power within a few hours, they win. If not, many may lose.”