A potential nuclear leak was reported on Monday at the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant in China’s Guangdong Province, which is home to about 126 million people.
A “performance issue” was reported at the plant, which is located about 84 miles from Hong Kong.
U.S. officials and Department of Energy documents reportedly show that the U.S. government has been assessing a reported leak at the nuclear plant for the last week. The documents, obtained by CNN, warned of a potential “imminent radiological threat” at the power plant.
The French group Framatome said on Monday it was working with experts to assess the situation at the Taishan facility.
A letter from the French group to the Department of Energy reportedly stated “due to the increasing number of failures,” rather than maintaining the advised radiation detection levels, China’s safety authority, the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA), revised the detection limit to more than double that of the gases being released from the power plant “which in turn increases off-site risk to the public and on-site workers.”
State-owned China General Nuclear Power Corp owns 70 percent of the nuclear facility while French energy giant EDF owns the other 30 percent.
“EDF has been informed of the increase in the concentration of certain noble gases in the primary circuit of reactor n°1 [number one] of the Taishan nuclear power plant,” EDF said in a statement on its website. “The presence of certain noble gases in the primary circuit is a known phenomenon, studied and provided for in the reactor operating procedures.”
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