A senior plant official happened to spot a human-caused cooling shutdown
at a Canadian nuclear reactor, narrowly averting a meltdown.
Ian McCleod wrote for ENENews 15 May 2013,
‘Significance Level 1′ incident at nuclear reactor — “The highest order” — Public not alerted by officials — Characterized as ‘near miss’
[…] a Chalk River nuclear operator mistakenly closed a vital
pumping system that cools the immense heat generated within the NRU
reactor’s core […][…] the Crown corporation said the Feb. 27 event — which the
official report characterized as a “near-miss” —
needs to be taken very seriously. […][Randy Lesco, vice-president of operations and chief nuclear officer
for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd] said that further categorizing the
incident as at “Significance Level 1,” the highest
order, means AECL is treating it with appropriate importance […]CNSC President Michael Binder questioned why AECL and CNSC staff did
not alert the public to the incident, which the Citizen first
reported on May 8. […]
And why didn’t the reactor have automatic alerts?
Ian MacCleod
wrote for the Ottawa Citizen 7 May 2013,
Human error blamed for “near-miss” at Chalk River reactor