Cracked Belgian Reactors May Be Retired, Same Risk at 22 Nuclear Plants Worldwide

Two Belgian reactors are receiving continued investigations into the structural cracking problems of their reactor vessels. The steel reactor vessels in question were all made by the now defunct Rotterdam Steel Company. Problems with the fabrication and steel quality lead to unusual cracks that were discovered during routine ageing inspections. A 22 US, European and South American reactors were made by this company and subject to the same potential problem.

The reactors appear to all be either Westinghouse PWR units or GE BWR units made by this particular steel company. When the issue was first discovered the US NRC said they would consider more inspections of the units made by Rotterdam Steel. Since that initial statement nothing has come out of the NRC about the issue or any findings of new inspections.

Belgian officials admitted that the cracks may lead to the impacted units in their country being permanently shut down.

Our previous reports on this issue:
http://www.simplyinfo.org/?p=7078
http://www.simplyinfo.org/?s=belgian

News reports etc of the new findings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotterdamsche_Droogdok_Maatschappij#Reactor_vessels_for_nuclear_plants
http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2012/08/09/soupcons-sur-les-cuves-de-22-reacteurs-nucleaires_1744086_3244.html
https://www.aixlab.de/documents/11101/31062/Report_EN.pdf

 

 

This article would not be possible without the extensive efforts of the SimplyInfo research team
Join the conversation at chat.simplyinfo.org

© 2011-2023 SimplyInfo.org, Fukuleaks.org All Rights Reserved Content cited, quoted etc. from other sources is under the respective rights of that content owner. If you are viewing this page on any website other than http://www.simplyinfo.org (or http://www.fukuleaks.org) it may be plagiarized, please let us know. If you wish to reproduce any of our content in full or in more than a phrase or quote, please contact us first to obtain permission.

Editor

Editor, SimplyInfo.org

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: