Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant (southeastern Romania) has been designed to withstand earthquakes of a magnitude higher than 8 on the Richter scale, although specialised studies reveal there is no risk that an earthquake as massive as the one in Japan could hit Romania, the Nuclearelectrica National Company that operates Cernavoda said on Tuesday.

'There isn't the risk in Romania that such a massive earthquake as in Japan could strike. The highest magnitude quake that could hit Romania is 7 to 7.5 on the Richter scale.

Cernavoda nuclear plant has been designed to withstand above 8-magnitude earthquake, since the maximum-magnitude earthquake considered when designing Cernavoda could strike once in a thousand years', Nuclearelectrica said.

The operator underscored that the location of Cernavoda Nuclear Plant was chosen after complex seismic risk studies.

If an earthquake strikes, the nuclear plant will safely shut, namely the reactor will be shut, the active area will be cooled and the nuclear safety parameters will be monitored, the release said.

For the safe reactor shutdown and for the removal of the residual heat in case of emergencies, the CANDU-6 technology-based Cernavoda plant has two groups of special systems designed on different principles of action and placed in separate locations, with independent sources of action, Nuclearelectrica explained.

CANDU technology has a major advantage to the other technologies, since the potential energy quantity stored in the reactor is much lower than at the other types of light-water cooled reactors and it has large reserves of cooling water in the inside reactor container vessels (200 tons of heavy water) and another 500 tons of water placed around the reactor vessel, which can provide comfortable cooling until normal cooling is restored, in the event it is lost.

Nuclearelectrica underscored that such safety characteristics specific of Cernavoda Nuclear Plant offer enough arguments for Romania to pursue with the project of building reactors no. 3 and 4 and continue its energy strategy.

Statistics made public by McGraw-Hill Companies Platts Nucleonics in Feb. 2010 reveal that Cernavoda's reactor no. 1 ranked top of the CANDU nuclear plants worldwide in 2009, with an average capacity factor of 100.1 percent. This capacity factor achieved in 2009 also placed Cernavoda's reactor no. 1 on the 12th spot among a total 436 nuclear reactors in operation.