By Martin Banks - 3rd November 2011
Others have failed to publish substantial information
Greenpeace
The environmental group Greenpeace has published a map allowing citizens in every European country to see how nuclear plants fared under so-called 'stress tests'.
After the Fukushima disaster in Japan in March, the EU told all nuclear power plant operators to carry out tests, hand over and publish the results by 31 October.
They are meant to see whether plants can stand up to extreme scenarios, including earthquakes, floods, loss of power and cooling.
It is claimed, however, that several regulators have failed to disclose the results to the public, despite being urged to do so by the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group, the organisation that designed the tests.
Initial Greenpeace analysis of the 10,000 or so published report pages revealed "missing results".
The multiple-reactor failure that struck at Fukushima was supposed to be examined, but is "missing from results," says Greenpeace.
The threat of airplane crashes were also a promised part of tests, but are "largely ignored", it says.
Greenpeace EU nuclear policy adviser Jan Haverkamp said, "Fukushima taught us to think the unthinkable and these tests have forced plant managers to do a little of that.
"But there are major blind spots – why are evacuation plans for towns and cities ignored? Why is reactor age not properly considered? Why did the authorities promise, but fail to look at the danger of multiple-reactor failure and large airplane crashes?"
"Where national regulators are more independent from operators, and therefore more rigorous, tests were more thorough, such as in France.
"Others have failed to publish substantial information, including the Czech Republic, Sweden and the UK."
He added, "The Czech Republic submitted a seven page report on its six reactors, compared to Slovenia's 177 page report on its single reactor."
Following the deadline, the European commission will now prepare an interim report for the meeting of EU energy ministers of 9 December.
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