Tiny screw screws up nuclear plant
A small screw missing from a tool used to refuel a 35-year-old nuclear power plant led technicians on a fruitless two-day search and has delayed the facility from coming back on line.
After the month-long refuelling operation at the plant – already branded as unsafe by environmental groups – operations at the Juan Cabrera nuclear power plant in Almonacid de Zorita, 45 miles east of Madrid had been due to resume this week.
But that has been delayed while the Nuclear Safety Council investigates the significance of a screw less than an inch in diameter, which was found to be missing from a tool used in the refuelling.
“We don’t know when we’ll let them restart. We’re waiting for a report that will tell us that the screw is in a safe place, that it won’t move and that it won’t cause any damage,” said council spokesman Jose Francisco Morales.
The reactor’s owner, the utility Union Fenosa, played down the incident. Citing a report from its contractor, Westinghouse, it said the screw was too big to have fallen into the nuclear fuel core.
The “hypothetical loss” of the screw was therefore an “innocuous” event that presented no risk, according to the utility.
Staff at the reactor gave up rummaging for the missing screw after an unsuccessful two-day search that involved scouring the vessel holding the nuclear core and dismantling the core with remote-controlled machines in a sealed cell.
“They would hardly go to the trouble of such a complex search if it wasn’t important,” said Greenpeace spokesman Carlos Bravo.
Bravo warned the screw could cause a very serious nuclear accident if it were loose in the nuclear core or in the high-pressure vessel containing it.
The plant’s deficient security system – it was recently found to have 10% less emergency cooling capacity than that prescribed – increases the potential risk posed by any irregularities, Bravo said.
Earlier this month, the Nuclear Safety Council dismissed the inadequate cooling capacity as harmless and said it could be remedied easily.
The reactor began operations in 1968 and is due to be dismantled in 2006.
Greenpeace and other environmental pressure groups have long been lobbying for it to be closed sooner. They cite the plant’s age and what they call lax security by the people operating it.
