AP
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
An unspecified safety problem prompted an emergency shutdown
at a Russian nuclear power plant, but no increase in radiation
levels were reported, federal officials said Tuesday.
The incident occurred at the first unit of the Balakovo plant
around 11:15 p.m. Monday, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.
The plant, located near the Volga River city of Saratov, about
450 miles southeast of Moscow, has four 1,000-megawatt pressurized
water reactors.
Nuclear regulators said the problem was located and corrected
Tuesday morning and could be restarted later in the day.
"Initial reports indicate the cause of the shutdown was
a problem with the safety system. The reactor has been taken off-line,"
the Emergency Situations Ministry said in a statement.
The Balakovo plant was the site of a false alarm in late 2004,
when a turbine malfunction prompted a shutdown and rumors of a
major accident sparked panic among nearby residents.
Russian lawmakers recently passed legislation to restructure
the country's nuclear power sector, which includes 31 reactors
at 10 nuclear power plants, accounting for about 17 percent of
electricity generation.
President Vladimir Putin has pledged to build another 42 atomic
reactors by 2030 and increase the proportion of electricity generation
produced by nuclear plants to about 25 percent.
Environmental groups have criticized government plans to keep
older model nuclear plants operational, saying that graphite reactors
like the one that exploded in Chernobyl and other types have serious
safety flaws.
About half of Russia's nuclear reactors are of the graphite and
older models.
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