Recent Posts
-
DATA Act Gets a Boost at Transparency Conference
September 13, 2013 -
Why Zero Wall Street CEOs Are in Jail
September 13, 2013 -
Senators Ask State Department To Respond to POGO Report on Embassy Security
September 12, 2013 -
SIGIR Releases Its Final Report
September 12, 2013 -
VA Makes Headway on Backlog with New Technology
September 12, 2013 -
Benghazi Ignored: New Evidence Exposes Gaps in Kabul Embassy Security
September 10, 2013 -
Map Shows State Dept. Official Gave Misleading Testimony to Congress
September 10, 2013 -
Watchdog Finds Flaws in DOE Contractor Responsibility Checks
September 10, 2013 -
DoD IG Confirms POGO’s DARPA Concerns
September 6, 2013
Former Nuclear Regulator Says All Reactors Have Unfixable Flaw
TweetApril 9, 2013
A major safety problem in all 104 nuclear power reactors in the U.S. cannot be fixed and must be replaced with newer technology, according to Gregory Jaczko, the former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Jaczko was quoted in the The New York Times saying “Continuing to put Band-Aid on Band-Aid is not going to fix the problem.”
From the article:
Dr. Jaczko cited a well-known characteristic of nuclear reactor fuel to continue to generate copious amounts of heat after a chain reaction is shut down. That “decay heat” is what led to the Fukushima meltdowns. The solution, he said, was probably smaller reactors in which the heat could not push the temperature to the fuel’s melting point.
This kind of sharp, public criticism of the nuclear industry by such a prominent former regulator is very unusual.
Read more about Jaczko’s comments in The New York Times.
Image from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Andre Francisco is the Online Producer for the Project On Government Oversight.
Topics: Energy and Natural Resources
Related Content: Nuclear Power
Authors: Andre Francisco
Related Posts
Stay Connected
Browse POGOBlog by Topic
POGO on Facebook
Latest Podcast
Podcast: How The Intelligence World Came to Rely on Contractors
POGO's Scott Amey talks about the growing private intelligence industry that includes major federal contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, the former employer of Edward Snowden. Podcast with Joe Newman, Aimee Thomson, Jana Persky and Andre Francisco.
