This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 18, 2011 - The Japanese nuclear plant crisis is one week old, but it already it has clear implications for Missouri's Callaway Nuclear Power Plant.
In a news conference today at Ameren Missouri headquarters, company officials said the disaster may very well lead to stiffer federal safety standards for Callaway and 103 other U.S. nuclear power facilities. The calamity has also injected more skepticism into discussions about whether Ameren is going to add a second reactor at Callaway.
But the bottom line, according to Ameren, is that the complete loss of power -- known as a station blackout -- that occurred at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant would not devolve into a similar catastrophe if it happened here.
Callaway has six power sources, on- and off-site. Should they all fail, workers would still be able to run the pumps indefinitely to keep radioactive materials cool and avoid a meltdown, according to Adam Heflin, Ameren's chief nuclear officer.
"We can operate it manually with no power at whatsoever," Heflin said.
What's used is "a steam-driven pump. So it takes steam from the steam generator, uses that steam to run the pump and pumps the water back to the steam generator which is critical for cooling. The pump itself has a manual extension valve for steam and this valve can be opened and closed manually," Heflin said.
Long-term Concerns
The crisis in Japan could increase the cost of the second reactor Ameren is interested in building, should it result in intensified Nuclear Regulatory Commission scrutiny. It's not hard to imagine that the collapse of the Japanese plant could potentially spell disaster for those plans. But state lawmakers, whose support is crucial to Ameren, are not more concerned following the events of last week, according to Ameren president and chief executive Warner Baxter.
"We sense no real change in the legislature," Baxter said.
But convincing Missouri residents that expansion is safe may be more difficult following the disaster.
"The concern level will go up and it probably should go up; it will go up within our industry, too," Heflin said. "We are going to lay out a meticulous time line of what happened, when it happened and why it happened. We will take those lessons and incorporate them back into our processes."
