Chinese official calls flooding big threat to nuclear safety
Shenzhen, China (Platts)--8Apr2011/523 am EDT/923 GMT
Chaofei Yang, chief nuclear safety engineer at the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection, outlined the guideline for the safety check at the China Nuclear Energy Association annual meeting in Shenzhen. He said the guideline was jointly developed by the MEP and the National Energy Administration.
Nuclear power plants have to pay special attention to the potential impact of multiple extreme disasters, he said, of which it is "most important" to examine the effect of flooding.
Floods happen frequently in China, Yang said.
"By conservative estimate," flooding caused loss amounts to more than Yuan 100 billion (about $15.4 billion) last year, he said. Even so, he said, China as a country is inadequately prepared to prevent and respond to flooding.
"Currently our concept of flood prevention is mainly focused on blocking [the water]" while developed countries such as the US are focusing on diverting water, Yang said, adding that the latter is a more effective method.
"There lies [a] big hazard in our flood prevention standards," Yang said. He said only one location in China is equipped with coping with a flood that could happen once in 200 years, while sites in the rest of the country only take into account floods that could happen once every 100 years or less. Yang also warned that many dams in China are old and near retirement.
In addition to evaluate plants' ability to resist floods, Yang said the guideline for safety check calls for nuclear plant operators to assess reactors' capability to survive massive earthquakes.
"If a magnitude 9.0 earthquake," -- the size of the quake that struck Japan last month -- "happens in China, can our plants be safe? We have to think about it," he said.
Plants also have to check and test the reliability of their firefighting systems, power supply, backup power supply, emergency response plan and environment monitoring in the case of an accident, he said.
--Yanmei Xie, yanmei_xie@platts.com
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