The earth quake design requirements are set in stone. You can not review and validate a design to make it better able to withstand an earth quake...
As far as lessons learned -we are STILL in the middles of the mess -NO ONE knows the extent of what happened. To what new information is the government going to review?
It is real simple:
Paper and testing evidence adequacy to design -all plants are approved already...
paper and inspections evidence compliance to regulations -all plants are compliant or they would be shit down...
0marxo wants to change the rules and this is yet another opportunity. That is all this is -a power grab...
Idiots supporting this apparently learned NOTHING from the ongoing gulf oil spill premised fiasco OR they themselves are anti-Americans...
The time to reflect is once all the facts are in and then with a measure of rational weighing of all considerations. Acting out of fear is STUPID...
"Firetrucks!? . . .your kidding me, firetrucks, that's your big idea?! . .. get out'a 'here, really, get out'a'here, go back to the drawing board & don't come back until you come up with something infinitely better than F I R E T R U C K S ! ?
" . . firetrucks, I can't believe these guys......
I think that the one BIG thing that the industry will gather from all this is that they MUST have adequate backup power supply available. All nuclear plants already are required to have on-site backup power as well as redundent off-site power sources. Basically, they’re built to withstand double or triple contingencies. I suspect that another layer of supply will become the next rule, or they may look at the conditions under which on-site supply may fail.
Obviously, an inland plant doesn’t need to protect against a tsunami, but it needs to be able to deal with situations perhaps beyond the 100-year flood or 100-year earthquake.
If not for the loss of off-site and backup generator power, Fukushima I would have experienced a normal shutdown just as Fukushima II did.
From those same people, I'm reading that private inspectors who adhere to government regulation certify without error that all plants are compliant and that, since they're the experts, they need no oversight: Of course they've made no mistakes, the power plant is still running isn't it?
That's pretty extreme. Especially since at least in the Fukushima plant's history there's been evidence of falsified reports. Never could happen here? Regulations are just guidelines, and they never need updating or validation that they're being adhered to, or that in the years since that some part of the checks and balances system has decayed? Can't even check to see if the diesel fuel tanks for the backup generators aren't rusty, or leaking, or have soaked up too much water for the generators to run accurately? A water coolant spillway is free of debris or has developed a zebra mussel infestation? Can't even check if a security door is properly locked? Oh, but I bet if some Muslim extremist managed to get employed at the plant these people would go ballistic that the US government dropped the ball, right?
Like I said, it's too cavalier and reckless here to say "Ah, that's just them Japs. Couldn't happen here in the USA." on the heels of the BP Deepwater Horizon spill and how negligent the private engineers and US government inspectors were shown to be there.
I do believe that questioning the curious dismissal of the need for these security and safety reviews doesn't make me a Communist or anti-American or stupid or any other names people want to call me.