Nuclear expert: U.S. should review worst case scenarios

[jpak]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-nuclear-vermont-idUSTRE72E86620110315?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews

(Reuters) - The U.S. nuclear industry and regulators need to reexamine disaster planning and worst-case scenarios, especially in reactors such as the Vermont Yankee with the same design as the crippled plant at the center of the Japanese crisis, a top expert says.

Vermont Yankee and similar plants are vulnerable to a similar cascade of events as in Japan, where reactors were crippled after the massive earthquake, said Arnold Gundersen, a nuclear engineer who advises the Vermont legislature, the only U.S. legislature with nuclear plant oversight.

The March 11 quake in Japan knocked out electric power needed for pumps used to cool the reactors. Back-up generators failed when they were flooded by the tsunami and emergency batteries ran out of power after eight hours, he said.

With no electricity to drive the pumps, the radioactive fuel at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station has dangerously overheated.

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[Marblehead]

1. won't happen

[Kennah]

2. The review or the worst case scenario?