Nuclear and radioactive waste Agency President: Romania will face the same problems as Japan if hit by a quake bigger than 8 degrees 

Everything that is happening in Japan, at the Fukushima nuclear plant is controlled, part of the intervention system in such situations and therefore there is no risk of nuclear catastrophe, Nuclear and Radioactive Waste Agency President Ion Nastasescu declared for HotNews.ro. According to him, the Japanese specialized agency marked the nuclear event at Fukushima at level 4 on a 0 to 7 scale. Ion Nastasescu said that the technology used in Romania at the Cernavoda reactors is safer than those in Japan.

However, if hit by a quake bigger than 8 degrees, Romania could face the same problems as Japan, Nastasescu said. There are so many security sytems that it is practically impossible to have contaminations above the normal standard nearby the plant and this is true for both the situation in Japan and for the Romanian Cernavoda plant, he added.

This nuclear event is a very important test for everybody because nuclear energy is one of the safest solutions to ensure electric energy, Nastasescu said. The measures taken by the Japanese, to evacuate the area within a 20 km radius is a normal precautionary one.

There is no way that the situation can accelerate to the situation at Chernobyl. In Japan, the security systems are safer than those at Chernobyl. There is no risk to have the Chernobyl event repeated; even Romania’s plant is well secured against that, Nastasescu opinionated.

Contamination problems are lower than problems that can appear on an economic level. About 27-30% of the energy mix is ensured through nuclear plants. The fact that most plants in Japan were shut down caused extraordinary problems. Japanese losses cannot even be evaluated, as the costs to reopen plants are very high.