Safety upgrades are in the works for Minnesota's Monticello and Prairie Island nuclear facilities as plant owners across the country are taking measures in response to last year's tragedy at Fukushima Daiichi. Xcel Energy is buying more diesel pumps and portable generators that can be utilized quickly in case of an emergency where all backup electricity goes out as it did in Japan.
"We are talking about large diesel pumps, with the capability of sucking water from the river and pumping it into the reactor vessel, similar to what the Japanese ultimately ended up doing," said Dennis Koehl, chief nuclear officer for the Minneapolis-based utility, according to Grand Forks Herald.
The upgrades are projected to cost between $20 million and $50 million. The industry says this is the first of many additional safety measures that will occur across the nation's 104 over the course of the next several years.
However, Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko believes the changes are not occurring quickly enough.
"I simply cannot accept a timeline that puts this issue well into the later part of the decade," wrote Jaczko – who was among the four commissioners to approve the Fukushima-related orders last week.
The NEI has directed its members to order portable response equipment this month. Xcel has already acquired five additional pumps.
For "big ticket items" – such as filtration systems for radioactive water – the industry has a "flexible coping strategy" in place, where the items are purchased by all plant owners and then flown to any specific plant in case of an emergency.