US assessing reported leak at Chinese nuclear power facility

[mellowyellow]

(CNN)The US government has spent the past week assessing a report of a leak at a Chinese nuclear power plant, after a French company that part owns and helps operate it warned of an "imminent radiological threat," according to US officials and documents reviewed by CNN.

The warning included an accusation that the Chinese safety authority was raising the acceptable limits for radiation detection outside the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant in Guangdong province in order to avoid having to shut it down, according to a letter from the French company to the US Department of Energy obtained by CNN……..

 

[911]

Oh Boy! This brings back memories of Three Mile Island, which I lived close to at the time of their accident. I was on the Governor's security team at that time and we, the SS included, visited the site with then President Carter back in 1979. We went into the control room and then into a meeting room to watch videos of the damaged reactor, which I had no idea what I was supposed to be seeing. Everyone living within 50 miles of the Island was on edge and high alert for a few weeks.

I asked one question during the tour with Harold Denton, who was the Director of the NRR. I asked what would happen if the core overheated? Would it explode? He then asked me, "Have you ever heard of the China Syndrome?" I told him that I did. It's a movie, right? Ironically, the movie came out at about the same time as the accident occurred. I think that he thought that I was trying to be a smart ass, but that's not so. I was just answering his question, as dumb as it may have seemed.