I have just been reading about a nuclear plant in North Carolina that houses reactors that share the same design as those at the Fukushima plant that suffered multiple meltdowns in 2011. Duke Energy Corp.'s Brunswick nuclear plant's two boiling water reactors (BWR) were built by General Electric. The reactor containment vessels are BWR-4s -- the exact same models as 4 of the 6 reactors housed at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Two of those four reactors and a further one (model BWR-3) went into meltdown following the magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami that hit northern Japan March 11, 2011 forcing the evacuation of over 160,000 residents. One report says the Carolina utility had started powering down one reactor early Thursday and would start shutting the second reactor later in the day. Hurricane Florence reached land near the plant on Friday. Following the Fukushima disaster US regulators enforced new regulations whereby all U.S. nuclear nuclear plants had to be reinforced against earthquakes and flooding. Duke Energy has not indicated if it has yet implemented those changes at Brunswick, but has said emergency generators and pumps will remove stormwater should the plant flood.
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