AERB safety steps to take 2 more years

The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) said the safety measures it had recommended to enhance safety at the Kudankulam nuclear plant would be implemented through the next two years.

Last year, following the disaster at the nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan, the AERB had reviewed the safety of all nuclear power plants in the country. An AERB committee had recommended various factors be considered before loading fuel into the Kudankulam plant. However, AERB has faced criticism for agreeing to load the fuel without heeding the recommendations.

Speaking to Business Standard, an AERB official said, “These recommendations were meant to enhance the safety of the plant. These did not mean the plant was unsafe,” the official said.

Asked why the recommendations were not implemented before deciding to load nuclear fuel in the plant, the official said a definite timeframe had been identified for implementing each recommendation.

Some suggestions were for a short term and would be completed in six months, while some were long-term. These, she said, would be implemented in two years.

Protests by villagers at Kudankulam, under the fold of the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy, led by S P Uthayakumar, had intensified when AERB, after a high court order, approved loading of nuclear fuel in the plant. The villagers, mostly fishermen, fear once the plant is operational, their safety and livelihoods would be at risk.

SAFETY STEPS AERB PANEL WANTED
The minimum requirements for core safety and spent fuel safety in the event of a natural disaster

• Provision for makeup of water on secondary side of Steam Generators
• Provision for Make up of Borated water to Spent Fuel Pool
• Provision for Injection of borated water in the Reactor Coolant System at required pressure in case any leakage develops and the existing substantial back up inventories are exhausted.
• Hook up provisions from outside the Reactor Building for the above water addition requirements from alternate sources other than the designed water routes.
• Augmentation of onsite water resources/storage designed to be intact following tsunamis/earth quake (with suitable capacity).
• Mobile pumping equipment/other methods that do not require on site or offsite power
• Alternate Power sources for the mobile pumping equipment
• Monitoring of important parameters (under item 4.2 above) using portable power packs at suitable pre identified wiring terminals.

Raising doubts on the safety of the plant, activists have moved the Supreme Court, demanding loading of the fuel be stopped. A petition by advocate and activist Prashant Bhushan cited a report released by AERB last year which recommended additional safety measures to withstand earthquake- and tsunami-related risks. His associate, Arvind Kejriwal, has joined the protests at Idinthikarai. After initially offering to get himself arrested, Uthayakumar has gone into hiding. Speaking on his behalf, Kejriwal on Wednesday said Uthayakumar would not be arrested.

Meanwhile, as tension simmered, security forces on Wednesday sealed almost the entire town housing the atomic plant with anti-nuclear movement leader S P Uthayayakumar remaining elusive after a somersault on his surrender offer.