Letters

摘要

I very much enjoyed Rick Michal's interview with David Lochbaum in the March 2008 issue of Nuclear News (p. 33). I always knew that the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) was a union and that its members were concerned, but I was not so sure about the "scientists" part. Mr. Lochbaum's remarks give me great encouragement in that area. The only thing I am still a bit concerned about is that if we in the industry do not agree with the UCS that a particular problem exists, or if one does exist and we do not agree with their solution as being the "best" one, will the open-mind-edness of the "true scientist" still exist? Thanks to the article, at least I am now more willing than I was in the past to give the organization the benefit of the doubt, and I do thank Mr. Lochbaum for taking the time to spend with the readers of Nuclear News. I was surprised to see that the UCS is not an AP1000 reactor advocate and instead "supports" the EPR. As pointed out, the EPR does have four independent trains, but that could mean that if there is a particular component failure in one train, there is susceptibility to failure in the other trains (i.e., common mode failures). Multiple trains can sometimes mean multiple headaches as far as testing, maintenance, and parts procurement. The EPR's built-in corium catcher certainly is a plus, but given the four trains, does it really justify itself as far as cost goes?