[Newsbot]

Title: Ex-nuclear safety chief resigns from 'demoted' role
Category: Misc CDN
Posted By: Hyack
Date: 2008-09-23 10:04:56
Canadian

[Scape]

Another day...another gaff...

[ridenrain]

Just a reminder that Atomic safety and politics don't mix.

[hurley_108]

ridenrain ridenrain:

Just a reminder that Atomic safety and politics don't mix.

You said it. Stopping a reacor with insufficient safety measures from starting up again - atomic safety. Interfering and demoting the regulator who made the call - politics.

[ridenrain]

You guys are still trying to twist this as a CPC mistake? Good luck with that . Chalk River has been underfunded and ignored for 15 years and most of that was Liberal majority time. That whole sad spin job failed.

[dino_bobba_renno]

Ha, love the new avatar Ridenrain.

Keen was sacked because she made a bad decision. She shut down a reactor because she thought that it was more important to protect the public from some kind of out of this world worst case serious that would never happen in a million years than it was to keep a steady supply of medical isotopes supplied to the world. She didn't weigh out the consequences of her decision.

If anything it sounded to me like she was on some sort of power trip and was more concerned with proving a point than she was with ensuring a level headed solution to the problem was found.

Lets review exactly what would have had to have happened in order for her "doom and gloom" prediction of a nuclear melt down to occur:

1. A severe earthquake occurs with its epicentre directly under the NRU reactor at Chalk River (there is no record of such an earthquake in the Upper Ottawa Valley);

2. The provincial power grid fails;

3. Back-up diesel power, and back-up battery power supplies are knocked out;

4. No NRU operating staff takes any action;

5. After about 0.5 hour the reactor coolant begins to boil;

6. After about 1.0 hour the reactor coolant has boiled away;

Keep in mind all of these would have had to sequentially taken place in order for her worst case scenario to have happened which would have resulted in a fuel failure.

[ridenrain]

Google the history of that reactor project or drag up the original thread. It was a huge underfunded fiasco from the start. That reaction was suposed to have been replaced a decade ago but funding never happened and it was left to muddle by untill they pulled the plug and pretended like it was Harper's fault.

[robmik43]

Another Chretien-era hack bites the big one.