Canada regulator reports water leak at nuclear plant

[stockholmer]

Source: Reuters

TORONTO, March 16 (Reuters) - Canada's nuclear regulator said on Wednesday there was a demineralized water leak at a nuclear power plant near Toronto late on Monday after a pump seal failed.

With world attention riveted on the nuclear crisis in Japan, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission said that the risk of radiation from the 73,000 liters of water released at the Pickering A generator was negligible.

Pickering A has two operating Candu reactors. The nuclear plant, along with its sister plant Pickering B, produce enough energy to fuel a city of 1.5 million people.

The complex is located in Pickering, Ontario, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Toronto.

Canada's Candu reactors use radioactive water, which is heated to produce steam, to drive the turbine. The reactors also contain non-radioactive water.

The nuclear regulator said it is monitoring the situation as are Canada's environmental regulators.

In China, the government ordered a safety crackdown on new nuclear reactors on Wednesday in light of the nuclear crisis in Japan. (Reporting by Julie Gordon; editing by Peter Galloway)



Read more: http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFN1610498020110316?sp=true

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starting to hate the word 'negligible', especially when applied to 73,000 litres

[Faux pas]

1. I've said for years that we won't need wars to destroy the world.

All we need to do is ruin the only world that we have, so far we're doing a bang up job....pun intended.

[RedCloud]

3. Yep. We make rope and wonder why we hang ourselves with it.

[Faux pas]

4. For sure and so true. Mankind is an ass.

:)

[groundloop]

2. Pump seals fail from time to time. I would imagine they have a backup....

I'd imagine they have a backup pump already in line and ready to go, so all they have to do is open or close some valves and at some point they'll pull the pump with bad seals and repair it. At least that's been my experience with big expensive pumps in other industries, I'm guessing a nuclear plant would have at least that much redundancy designed in.