"Time bombs," he says, sounding very bitter. "We are sitting on a bunch of ticking time bombs."

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,775209,00.html

07/21/2011

New Reactor in Tennessee

Safety Concerns Cloud US Nuclear Renaissance

By Ullrich Fichtner

Watts Bar 2, the US's newest nuclear power plant, is being built in Tennessee and is expected to go online next year. It has a history of safety concerns that goes back decades. Nevertheless, many local people support nuclear power and are welcoming the reactor with open arms.

Mansour Guity was the chief witness against the American nuclear industry. He crippled entire power plants almost single-handedly. But now the 30-year war he has been waging is coming to an end.

They are now putting the finishing touches on the second reactor at the Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station in the Tennessee River valley, less than 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Guity's house. After construction was stopped more than two decades ago and resumed in 2007, the reactor is now expected to go online next year. Mansour Guity isn't doing too well at the moment.

A few days ago, a massive tornado swept through Tennessee and cut a swath of destruction through Alabama. Hundreds of tornados snapped utility poles like matchsticks and forced authorities to temporarily shut down the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant, a twin of the Fukushima plant. It went into emergency operation during the stormy night and shut itself down automatically.

Guity is familiar with such matters, and he knows what goes on inside nuclear plants when this happens. A nuclear engineer who was born in Iran in 1942, Guity is a disappointed American today. "Time bombs," he says, sounding very bitter. "We are sitting on a bunch of ticking time bombs."

[aquart]

1. Buh bye, Tennessee

"What destroyed humans, Daddy?"

"They were dumb, Son."

[Forkboy]

2. K&R