ScribbleLive

A Toshiba Corp. reactor remains on track to power the first new U.S. nuclear plants approved in 30 years, as regulators signaled Japan’s Fukushima disaster won’t deter acceptance of the proposed design.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s staff declared Aug. 9 that the AP1000 design by Toshiba’s Westinghouse Electric unit is safe, and also supported its first planned use at a plant under construction in Georgia by Southern Co., the largest U.S. utility owner by market value. The full commission still must vote to approve the reactor design and a plant license.

Southern, based in Atlanta, has dug foundations and finished a fabrication plant for the $14 billion project southeast of Augusta, Georgia, and wants to begin full construction in January. Staff approval means public hearings can begin on its license request, the company said in a statement. The NRC plans to publish the staff safety report for the reactor design today.

An NRC task force recommended last month that the agency adopt new rules to protect the 104 existing U.S. commercial reactors from earthquakes and floods. An earthquake and tsunami devastated Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant in March. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko wants the commission to consider within 90 days which of the task force’s suggestions to implement.

“There doesn’t appear to be any recommendation that would affect the design-certification process for the AP1000,” NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said in an e-mail. A commission vote to certify the new reactor design is expected “by the beginning of next year,” he said.

The AP1000 already has many “features and attributes necessary to address” recommendations by the task force on U.S. reactor safety, according to its report.

www.bloomberg.com

TEPCO says it has lost contact with 143 nuclear plant workers
www.japantoday.com

@veenie has got me using seesmic desktop seesmic.com when you sign into twitter on it it will translate any tweet by right clicking the tweet and using the translate option , this is awesome I am going to go buy espresso coffee so I can enjoy it in style

more contaminated rice www.kahoku.co.jp

@Edano melted through?

why should radiation drop suddenly ???

no more news. another quiet weekend.

@elainekirk how about england ? everything quiet now ?

@Edano lol diggers out trying salvage route through village

@elainekirk that article all is BS. first they mix up internal and external exposure. and then:
"One person measured just more than 1 millisievert of radioactive cesium when converted to exposure over the coming 50 years" does this mean they detected 50 mSv ???
this is complete BS. no doubt.

next time they will say they found a person who has internal radiation equalling eating of 150 bananas and another equalling 50 transatlantic flights. i bet they do that.

just walking the dogs

@Edano lol

@lillymunster hello

taken with the 'study' rockhopper I copied below

@lillymunster @Majj has just tweeted some disturbing ex-skf.blogspot.com and rockhopper coming back later she has migraine

@elainekirk I read that last night. Trying not to go into panic mode about the info.

@elainekirk is it just for twitter?

Hi Majj! :-)

@Majj Hi Majj :)