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SHANGHAI – The Chinese government said on Wednesday that “about five” uranium fuel rods inside a nuclear power plant in southeast China had been damaged, but added that no radiation had escaped from the reactors at the site.
China’s National Nuclear Safety Administration said in a statement that regulators had reviewed and approved limits on the amount of radioactive gas allowed to accumulate in water in the reactor. Nuclear scientists in the United States and Europe said in interviews this week that a buildup of radioactive gas in the water around fuel rods, though not uncommon in reactors elsewhere, is often a sign of poor design, manufacturing or management.
The Taishan Nuclear Power Plant is located on the coast about 80 miles southwest of Hong Kong. Reactor 1 of the power plant, which has experienced difficulties in recent days, contains more than 60 thousand fuel rods.
The safety agency said the reactor is designed to operate safely despite up to 0.25 percent of the fuel rods being damaged. This will be at least 150 fuel rods.
It’s fairly common for a few fuel rods to suffer damage in a nuclear reactor, said Najmuddin Miskati, an engineering professor specializing in nuclear safety at the University of Southern California. But he said it’s less common for radioactive gases to build up in the water around fuel rods to the point that regulators need to review safe levels.
“There is no doubt that something has happened,” he said, adding that events inside the reactor were unlikely to pose a serious safety threat.
The two nuclear reactors at Taishan use a new design developed in France. Two major French companies involved in building and operating reactors, Framatome and EDF, publicly acknowledged on Monday that difficulties had occurred in operating Reactor 1.
Also, fuel rods in nuclear reactors in the West sometimes leak traces of radioactive gases into the surrounding waters. Leaks can occur when the outer trim of the rails is damaged by bristles of the brush used during maintenance or other contaminants.
But China’s safety regulator, which is part of the Ministry of Environment and Environment, said there had been no leaks into the environment. “Currently, the results of monitoring the radiation environment around the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant show that there is no abnormality in the radiation level around the nuclear power plant,” the statement said.
The safety agency said that while the fuel rods have leaked a little into the surrounding water, the water system itself does not. Even if the water system leaks, the entire reactor is contained within a very thick, impenetrable concrete dome, the agency added.
Liu Yi contributed to the research.
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