General Electric-Designed Reactors In Fukushima Have 23 Sisters In U.S. - MSNBC

General Electric-designed reactors in Fukushima have 23 sisters in U.S.
By Bill Dedman
Investigative Reporter, msnbc.com

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The General Electric-designed nuclear reactors involved in the Japanese emergency are very similar to 23 reactors in use in the United States, according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission records.

The NRC database of nuclear power plants http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/list-power-reactor-units.html shows that 23 of the 104 nuclear plants in the U.S. are GE boiling-water reactors with GE's Mark I systems for containing radioactivity, the same containment system used by the reactors in trouble at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The U.S. reactors are in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Vermont.


GE via NRC - GE's Mark I containment system.

In addition, 12 reactors in the U.S. have the later Mark II or Mark III containment system from GE. These 12 are in Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington state. See the full list below.

(General Electric is a parent company of msnbc.com through GE's 49 percent stake in NBCUniversal. NBCUniversal and Microsoft are equal partners in msnbc.com.)

Msnbc.com sent questions Saturday to GE Energy, asking whether the Japanese reactors differed from those of the same general design used in the U.S. A GE spokesman, Michael Tetuan, referred all questions to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade and lobbying group. Tetuan said GE nuclear staff members in Wilmington, N.C., are focused on assisting GE employees in Japan and standing by to help the Japanese authorities if asked to help.

The six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, which had the explosion on Saturday, are all GE-designed boiling-water reactors, according to the anti-nuclear advocacy group Nuclear Information and Resource Service http://www.nirs.org/ . The group says that five have containment systems of GE's Mark I design, and the sixth is of the Mark II type. They were placed in operation between 1971 and 1979.

A fact sheet http://www.scribd.com/doc/50550192/NIRS-Fact-Sheet-on-Fukushima-Nuclear-Power-Plant from the group contends that the Mark I design has design problems, and that in 1972 an Atomic Energy Commission member, Dr. Stephen Hanuaer, recommended that this type of system be discontinued.

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More: http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/13/6256121-general-electric-designed-reactors-in-fukushima-have-23-sisters-in-us

:kick:

Something to be aware of, but down my list of major worries. Most seem not in an area which could get a tsunami.

:wow:

I mean like that would REALLY fuck up a nuke facility...

a nuclear power plant on an oceanic beach facing the point at which two colossal tectonic plates bump and grind against each other.

bad bad bad that would be :scared:

The New Madrid fault going off again.