Oldest US nuclear reactor ‘disaster waiting to happen’ focus 03/26/2011

Oldest US nuclear reactor ‘disaster waiting to happen’

focus

03/26/2011
LACEY — A sleepy New Jersey town has come onto people’s radar screens because it has the oldest running nuclear power plant in the United States — and some say the most dangerous.

Named for a Revolutionary War general, Lacey, New Jersey is the kind of American town that few from outside the seaside settlement knew much about before the earthquake and tsunami in Japan triggered a nuclear crisis.

Down the road from the 1950s-style diner and across from the bridge that locals use as a fishing pier stands the Oyster Creek nuclear plant.

It uses a GE Mark I Boiling Water reactor identical to those at Japan’s Fukushima plant that lost power in the March 11 earthquake and then had their backup generators knocked out by the tsunami, causing cooling functions to fail..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110326com3.html