Public citizen, an anti-nuclear group in the US, has identified what it
claims are 20 鈥榥uclear lemons鈥� among the 111 nuclear power stations in the
US. Fourteen were built by the same company, General Electric.
The group has demanded that the reactors be shut down. 鈥楾his country right
now is undergoing a de facto nuclear phase-out. The first plants to be shut
down should be the ones that head our list,鈥� says Bill Magavern, director of
the group鈥檚 Critical Mass project.
The group analysed publicly available reports from the US Nuclear Regulatory
Commission in areas such as failures of safety systems, the percentage of
time that a reactor is not generating, and workers鈥� exposure to radiation.
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General Electric shrugged off the criticism. 鈥楪E reactors are safe, as
proven by their successful 30-year operating record in many nations around
the world,鈥� says company spokesman Lynn Wallis. 鈥楻egulators in the US,
Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Italy and Japan have unanimously endorsed the
safety of the reactor.
