Nuclear Energy Institute Japan: US is expecting that the present disaster will not affect the nuclear project in Tokyo Japan at four reactors.Japanese officials are trying to prevent a nuclear meltdown at four nuclear reactors at Tokyo Electric Power’s Fukushima Daiichi plant. Friday’s tsunami washed away back-up diesel generators needed to keep water pumping into the reactors to keep them cool. Seawater is being pumped into the reactors using fire hoses. While it will take time to understand what happened in Japan, U.S. power plants undergo in depth seismic analysis and are “constructed to withstand maximum earthquakes” and other natural disasters, said Tony Pietrangelo, chief nuclear officer at NEI, the industry’s main policy organization. About a fifth of the power generated in the U.S. comes from 104 nuclear reactors. About 63 of those licenses have been renewed and others are under review. Several companies are also pursuing projects to build new reactors, such as in North Carolina and South Carolina as well as Texas. “New plant construction will be unaffected by this given where the plants are located,” Pietrangelo.
