Nuke safety check launched worldwide
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Many countries in the world began to review the safety of their nuclear reactors Tuesday after a devastating earthquake damaged a Japanese nuclear power plant.
The European Union (EU) would conduct "stress tests" on its member states' nuclear power plants, EU's energy chief Guenther Oettinger said.
The tests would include risk assessments of possible damage by earthquakes and high water levels, Oettinger told the European Parliament's Energy Committee.
The announcement came after radiation shot up to dangerous levels near a nuclear plant in Japan's Fukushima, which was damaged by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and ensuing massive tsunami on Friday.
The EU tests would be concluded by the end of the year, Oettinger said, adding that thorough stress tests would also take place in nuclear plants of neighboring countries including Turkey, Russia and Switzerland.
Europe now has about 143 nuclear power plants in 14 countries.
Earlier on Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the country would shut down seven of its oldest nuclear reactors built before 1980 for three months for a safety probe.
Besides the seven plants, the Krummel nuclear power station in Schleswig-Holstein built in 1983, whose operation had already been suspended, would remain closed during the three-month period.
Germany currently has 17 nuclear power stations. The youngest one was commissioned in 1989.
France, the world's second largest nuclear energy producer, will also launch a series of checks to assess the safety of its nuclear reactors.
"Safety of each plant in France will be controlled in the light of lessons we've learned from the disaster of Fukushima. The results of these checks will be issued publicly," French Prime Minister Francois Fillon told the National Assembly.
"The Fukushima disaster reminds us of the requirement of improving the professional management of our industrial risks," he added.
British Energy Minister Chris Huhne said his country is not in a seismic zone and has different reactor types from those damaged in Japan.
But he asked Britain's nuclear watchdog to look closely at what happened at the Fukushima plant.
"I'm asking our own nuclear regulator, or safety authorities, to look very carefully at the Japanese experience to learn any lessons that we can, both for our own existing nuclear reactions and for any new nuclear program," Huhne told the BBC.
"Safety is absolutely the number one priority for us in all our energy sources, and that has to be the case with this one as well."
Around 20 percent of Britain's energy supply is provided by nuclear power.
