OPINION | JEREMY GORDON
Jeremy Gordon is an independent communication consultant with 15 years of experience in the international energy industry. His company Fluent in Energy supports partners of all kinds to communicate matters of clean energy and sustainable development.
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Jeremy Gordon says China’s slow response to questions about fuel leakage at Taishan raise concerns over its commitment to open information – and that should be a concern for the rest of the industry
THE UNIT: Illustration copyright Alexy Kovynev
days previously, which raised concerns with claims of an increase of radiation around Taishan and a supposed ‘leak’ that had been going on for at least a week. In fact, the issue was leaky fuel elements, whose
signature is a build-up of noble gases from the fission process. Although fuel suppliers have worked hard over the years to avoid such fuel damage it is still quite normal, with well-established tolerances and operational methods to manage the issue. NNSA said that five of Taishan 1’s 60,000 fuel elements were damaged and it had raised the permitted level of noble gases allowed in the primary loop. Importantly, NNSA clarified that this was happening inside the plant, and certainly not outside, where radiation levels remained normal. Taishan 1 was the first EPR unit to enter operation in
“My kids say that if I cannot explain what happened at the plant, then I myself don’t understand”
A DETAILED Q&A BY OFFICIALS at China’s National Nuclear Safety Authority (NNSA) clarified everything. It superseded bare- bones announcement by Framatome, issued more than 36 hours previously, which itself confirmed
a little of what had been discussed unofficially on social media. Everyone had been looking to find a plausible explanation for a story published by CNN more than two
12 | August 2021 |
www.neimagazine.com
2018 and remains fairly new, having been refuelled only once. It was natural for the operating consortium — CGN and Framatome — to collaborate with Framatome’s offices in France to diagnose, analyse and manage the issue. However, that required Framatome to transfer information of US origin to CGN, which required approval from the US state department. Such a transfer must be justified, with one permitted reason being cases of ‘imminent radiological release’. It was sight of that wording that had triggered the CNN item, in combination with a ‘build-up of gases’ and NNSA changing the rules on how much radioactivity is allowed. The conditions that would turn an operational issue into
an international panic had been set in place across three countries over many years. They sat waiting until 14 June 2021 to be triggered.
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