Risk of restarting nuclear reactor too high: Keen

[daleo]

The woman who was fired by the federal Conservatives as president of Canada's nuclear safety watchdog said Tuesday the safety risk of resuming the Chalk River, Ont., reactor was 1,000 times higher than accepted international standards.

Linda Keen, former president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, said there was a one in 1,000 chance of an accident occurring and she did not believe the medical isotope-producing nuclear reactor in Chalk River should resume operation.

In the case of a nuclear fuel failure, the international standard for acceptable risk is one in a million, said Keen.
...
She said she was acting according to the law when she refused to approve the restart of the reactor.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/01/29/isotopes-keen.html
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It would be good to know what the time frame for "one in 1,000" is - I presume it is a year. Canada probably has several dozen reactors of one kind or another (Pickering, Darlington, Quebec, New Brunswick, various research reactors like Chalk River, university research reactors, etc). A failure probability of 1 in 1000 for each would mean a 50% chance of an accident somewhere, every 20 or 30 years. Keen's caution seems reasonable, in light of those facts.