Nuclear power is not as safe as they want us to believe. Nuclear regula­tors from the UK, France and Fin­land sent a joint letter to Areva, the ma­kers of the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), in Octo­ber 2009, about pro­blems with the design’s Control and Instrumentation (C&I) systems. One independent expert says the design suffers from serious safety flaws which could lead a mi­nor incident to develop into a severe accident. The French group Sortir du Nucléaire published leaked docu­ments showing the design pre­sents a serious risk of a major acci­dent.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Com­mission sent the design of the Westinghouse AP1000 proposed for Britain back to the drawing board, because the Safety Shield Building – the outer structure surrounding the contain­ment – does not meet “funda­mental engineering standards” and may not protect the reactor from “ex­ternal” events like earthquakes, torna­does and high winds, or with­stand a direct hit from a commercial airliner. The UK re­gulator asked Westing­house to provide fresh evi­dence that the design was sufficiently strong.
Interim assessment reports on the two designs published in November 2009 expressed “significant concerns”.

Pete Roche