EU ministers agree on stress tests for nuclear plants

 

EU energy ministers agree to do stress tests on nuclear plants in the region after Japan crises.

JURJEN VAN DE POL

Published: 2011/03/22 07:26:15 AM

EUROPEAN Union (EU) energy ministers yesterday agreed on stress tests for all nuclear plants in the EU during an emergency meeting called in response to Japan’s accident, the Dutch energy minister said.




"Because the safety of nuclear power plants has direct consequences across borders, it is important that there will be a uniform stress test," the Netherlands’ Maxime Verhagen said in Brussels after a meeting of EU energy ministers. "If the outcome of the stress test gives reason to act, measures have to be taken."




The EU wants to draw up common criteria to gauge the safety of the region’s 143 atomic plants. The risk of a nuclear meltdown in Japan, after a March 11 earthquake and tsunami, triggered public protests in Europe against atomic power and prompted Germany to order a temporary halt to the country’s seven oldest reactors.


In Japan, grey smoke rose from two reactor units yesterday , temporarily stalling work to reconnect power lines and restore cooling systems to stabilise Japan’s radiation- leaking nuclear complex.




The cause of the smoke billowing first from Unit 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi plant and later from Unit 2 was under investigation, nuclear safety agency officials said.


Still, in the days since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami wrecked the plant’s cooling systems, both reactors have overheated and seen explosions. Workers were evacuated from the area to buildings nearby, though radiation levels remained steady, the officials said.


Police estimate the death toll from the quake and tsunami will surpass 18000. The disasters have displaced another 452000 people, who are in shelters.




Traces of radiation are tainting vegetables and some water supplies, although in amounts the government and health experts say do not pose a risk to human health in the short term.


"Please do not overreact, and act calmly," chief cabinet spokesman Yukio Edano said in the government’s latest appeal to ease public concerns. "Even if you eat contaminated vegetables several times, it will not harm your health at all."


Mr Edano said Fukushima’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power, would compensate farmers affected by bans on the sale of raw milk, spinach and canola.


In France, analysts were less reassuring. France’s Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) said yesterday local contamination from the Fukushima nuclear power plant would be a problem for "for decades and decades".


Releases of radioactivity from the plant "are now significant and continuing", the head of the agency, Andre-Claude Lacoste, said.


"We have to assume that Japan will have a long-term issue of managing the impacts," he said.


Early yesterday , the health ministry advised Iitate, a village of 6000 people about 30km northwest of the plant, not to drink tap water due to elevated levels of iodine. Reuters, Sapa-AFP