Event at Ling Ao power station classified as level 0, but engineer says fact nothing serious happened was pure luck
ERNEST.KAO@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Thursday, 26 May, 2016, 1:37pm
Staff at Ling Ao Nuclear Power Station discovered that the alarm function for the cooling water system radiation monitoring device failed to display. Photo: Wan Kam-yan
A nuclear power plant located just a stone’s throw from Hong Kong has been hit by its third minor operational incident this year – this time involving a faulty alarm system, officials disclosed.
Staff at the Ling Ao Nuclear Power Station in Shenzhen discovered on Tuesday that the alarm function for the cooling water system radiation monitoring device failed to display after being previously disabled and not restored. The incident took place at the plant’s Phase II’s unit one.
Reporting on the matter as required, the Security Bureau said plant staff had immediately restored the function, and that the glitch had not affected workers and other equipment at the station. Radiation levels in the plant cooling water during the period it had been disabled were also normal, it added.
“Further investigation revealed that the alarm function was disabled in the previous planned outage in compliance with the necessary plant criteria, but was not duly restored,” a bureau spokesman said.
The event was classified as a “below scale” , or level 0, “licensing operational event”, meaning there was no effect on the safe operation of the nuclear power station, health of the workers or nearby public or environment.
Two level 0 incidents have already occurred at Ling Ao this year. The first case, in January, involved an air vent closing unexpectedly, while the second, just last month, involved the filters of a water intake pipe being blocked by a large accumulation of small krill-like shrimp.
Hong Kong does not source power from Ling Ao, but it does from the nearby Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station (pictured). Photo: Corbis
Hong Kong does not source power from Ling Ao, but it does from Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station located a kilometre away, which reported one level 0 incident last year. Both are run by the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Operations and Management Company.
Ho Chung-tai, chairman of the Hong Kong Nuclear Safety Consultative Committee, which monitors the two facilities, said there was little cause for worry as the fault did not affect other functions at the station. He also commended the level of transparency in the system.
But engineer Albert Lai Kwong-tak of the Professional Commons said the fact nothing serious happened was just pure luck.
“What if they didn’t discover it? Nuclear safety shouldn’t be based on good luck,” he said.
Lai said the biggest risk for nuclear plants was complacency.
“A lot of operators think everything has been safe, it will always be safe, and thus develop a lower level of alertness.”
Environmental groups such as Greenpeace have expressed concern over the safety and security of nuclear power plants located near Hong Kong, following disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Responding to a query from legislator Kenneth Leung in council on Wednesday, security chief Lai Tung-kwok said there were regular cooperation and communication channels between Hong Kong and Guangdong authorities for “periodic exchange and review of issues like nuclear incident monitoring and notification arrangements”.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/1954972/nuclear-plant-near-hong-kong-hit-third-operational
