Report: Nuclear industry's safety measures are 'inadequate'

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Source: The Hill

The U.S. nuclear industry is not prepared to prevent or handle the catastrophic damage a natural disaster could wreak on a nuclear power plant, according to a new report.

While the industry has made improvements in safety after the devastating earthquake and tsunami that created a melt-down at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011, the National Academy of Sciences report warns more must be done.

The problem, according to the report, is U.S. safety regulations are focused on an operator's ability to respond to "specified failures" or "design-basis-events," like equipment failures, loss of power, or the inability to cool the reactor core.

That isn't enough, according to the National Academy of Sciences, which was commissioned to investigate the Fukushima incident.

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Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/213296-report-nuclear-industrys-safety-measures-are-inadequate

[bananas]

1. NAS Fukushima report: Accidents will happen

http://america.aljazeera.com/blogs/scrutineer/2014/7/24/nas-fukushima-reportaccidentswillhappen.html

NAS Fukushima report: Accidents will happen
by Gregg Levine @GreggJLevine
Jul 24 6:53 PM

If there is one message to take from the National Academy of Sciences report, Lessons Learned From the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving the Safety of U.S. Nuclear Plants, released today, it is that accidents can happen, and it is essential for nuclear plant operators, regulators and public safety responders to all have plans for what to do when one does.

The congressionally mandated report, the result of over two years of work, looked at the responses at Japanese nuclear facilities after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of 2011, and found the outcomes indicate some obvious actions going forward.

Foremost in both the lengthy report and at the press conference with its authors: Emergency managers, regulators, and most pointedly, nuclear plant operators need to pay better attention to what are called “beyond design basis events” (BDBEs).

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[bananas]

2. Report finds US nuclear plants are unprepared to deal with natural disasters

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/24/report-finds-us-nuclear-plants-are-unprepared-to-deal-with-natural-disasters/

Report finds US nuclear plants are unprepared to deal with natural disasters
By Agence France-Presse
Thursday, July 24, 2014 15:35 EDT

US nuclear plants must better prepare for the risk of natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis and floods, said a report Thursday on lessons learned from Japan’s Fukushima crisis in 2011.

Current approaches to regulating nuclear safety “are clearly inadequate for preventing core-melt accidents and mitigating their consequences,” the report said.

As of now, US safety regulations are based on making sure nuclear plants can withstand equipment failures, loss of power and other malfunctions related to the design of the plant, otherwise known as design-basis events.

But history has shown that the biggest nuclear accidents in recent history — including at Fukushima Daiichi, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl — “were all initiated by beyond-design-basis events,” said the report.

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[bananas]

3. Nuclear plants ill-prepared for worst-case scenarios, report says

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nuclear-safety-20140724-story.html

Nuclear plants ill-prepared for worst-case scenarios, report says
By Maya Srikrishnan
July 24, 2014 4:40 PM

The current approaches for regulating nuclear plant safety in the U.S. are “clearly inadequate” for preventing meltdowns and “mitigating their consequences,” according to a report released Thursday.

U.S. safety regulations traditionally ensure that plants are designed to withstand ordinary equipment failures, power losses and the loss of ability to cool the reactor core — the part of a plant where the nuclear reactions take place. But this is not enough, according to the report by the National Academy of Sciences.

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The report also emphasizes the importance of a national “safety culture” in which regulators make public safety a top priority. It says nuclear operators should be required to meet the highest standards possible and that safety requirements should be regularly updated — something the report says was lacking in Japan with Fukushima and in the Soviet Union with Chernobyl.

“Adequate funding and highly competent staff are necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for regulatory independence,” the report says. “It also requires strong leadership that maintains a laser focus on safety and does not allow itself to become distracted by outside pressures.”

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[bananas]

4. Nuclear Plants Should Focus on Risks Posed by External Events, Study Says

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/25/us/nuclear-plants-should-focus-on-risks-posed-by-external-events-study-says.html?_r=0

Nuclear Plants Should Focus on Risks Posed by External Events, Study Says
By MATTHEW L. WALD, July 24, 2014

Engineers at American nuclear plants have been much better at calculating the risk of an internal problem that would lead to an accident than they have at figuring the probability and consequences of accidents caused by events outside a plant, a report released Thursday by the National Academy of Science said.

Accidents that American reactors are designed to withstand, like a major pipe break, are “stylized” and do not reflect the bigger source of risk, which is external, according to the study. That conclusion is one of the major lessons from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in Japan in 2011, which began after an earthquake at sea caused a tsunami.

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B. John Garrick, a nuclear engineering consultant and vice chairman of the two-year study, said that engineers had more experience calculating the probability of failure in a valve or a pipe than in predicting earthquakes or floods. Better predictions of such events were possible, he said.

The study, ordered by Congress after the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi’s reactors, said that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the American nuclear industry should focus on the main sources of risk: accidents set off by “extreme external events,” like earthquakes or floods; multiple human or equipment failures; and “violations of operational protocols.”

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[bananas]

5. US nuclear disaster plans inadequate, says report on Fukushima crisis

http://www.firstpost.com/world/us-nuclear-disaster-plans-inadequate-says-report-fukushima-crisis-1633919.html

US nuclear disaster plans inadequate, says report on Fukushima crisis
Jul 25, 2014 09:31 IST

Washington: US nuclear plants must better prepare for the risk of natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis and floods, said a report on lessons learned from Japan's Fukushima crisis in 2011.

Current approaches to regulating nuclear safety "are clearly inadequate for preventing core-melt accidents and mitigating their consequences," the report said.

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It cited a number of off-site events that could interfere with electrical power to nuclear operations, from terrorism to human error to geomagnetic disturbances caused by solar storms that interrupt the electrical grid.

"There is some new evidence now that some of these events are not as rare as perhaps we thought," said Garrick.

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6. US nuclear regulators should focus on extreme events: NAS

http://www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-power/washington/us-nuclear-regulators-should-focus-on-extreme-21969184

US nuclear regulators should focus on extreme events: NAS
Washington (Platts)--24Jul2014/431 pm EDT/2031 GMT

US nuclear regulators and industry officials must do more to protect reactors from extreme, but unlikely, events like the earthquake and tsunami that caused the accident at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, the National Academy of Sciences recommended in report issued Thursday.

In its report on the causes and lessons from the Fukushima nuclear accident, NAS also urged regulators and industry to incorporate "modern risk concepts" to increase reactor safety in the US.

In addition, the study concluded that Fukushima plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Japan's nuclear regulator at the time failed to heed mounting evidence that the plant was not properly protected from flooding.

The report raised questions about the approach to nuclear safety used in the US and other countries, which relies on studies of the most likely accident scenarios for a site, the so-called "design-basis accident," and holds plant operators accountable for being able to withstand them. Less likely events are considered "beyond design-basis" and are regulated differently.

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Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences to examine the causes of the March 2011 accident in Japan and report on any potential lessons for US plants. The report was completed under a contract with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A committee of 21 specialists held 39 meetings over two years to gather information for the report and recommendations.

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[Tikki]

7. I believe the whole industry was set on coast with fingers crossed from the start...and certainly no

realistic plans were set to deal with the waste no matter how the environment reacted.

bananas...thank you for all you do to keep this issue out front.

Tikki

[AndyTiedye]

9. Worst Case they Have to pay 19M/Year for about 6 years

The public gets stuck with most of the bill in case of an accident, and the operators get an interest-free loan from the government for their share.

Power reactor licensees are required by the act to obtain the maximum amount of insurance against nuclear related incidents which is available in the insurance market (as of 2011, $375 million per plant). Any monetary claims that fall within this maximum amount are paid by the insurer(s). The Price-Anderson fund, which is financed by the reactor companies themselves, is then used to make up the difference. As of September, 2013, each reactor company is obliged to contribute up to $121,255,000 per reactor in the event of an accident with claims that exceed the $375 million insurance limit. As of 2013, the maximum amount of the fund is approximately $12.61 billion ($121,255,000 X 104 reactors) if all of the reactor companies were required to pay their full obligation to the fund. This fund is not paid into unless an accident occurs. However, fund administrators are required to have contingency plans in place to raise funds using loans to the fund, so that claimants may be paid as soon as possible. Actual payments by companies in the event of an accident are capped at $18,963,000 per year until either a claim has been met, or their maximum individual liability (the $121,255,000 maximum) has been reached.[2][3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act

I don't think the nuke operators are losing any sleep over the possibility of having to pay 19M/year in the event of a worst-case accident.

The rest of us probably should.

[bananas]

8. Fukushima report urges U.S. plant operators to take heed

http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacific/2014/07/fukushima-report-urges-u-s-plant-operators-take-heed

Fukushima report urges U.S. plant operators to take heed
By Dennis Normile
24 July 2014 4:00 pm

To avoid the kind of complacency over safety that led to the March 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Japan, U.S. nuclear plant operators and regulators must be prepared to take timely action to upgrade plant safety features in line with advances in the understanding of natural hazards, states a report released today.

The report, Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety of U.S. Nuclear Plants, was written by a committee of the National Academy of Sciences. The panel drew on Japanese and international investigations into the causes of the Fukushima disaster, precipitated by the magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011.

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"The overarching lesson learned from the Fukushima Daiichi accident is that nuclear plant licensees and their regulators must actively seek out and act on new information about hazards that have the potential to affect the safety of nuclear plants," the report concludes, adding that plant operators "must take timely actions to implement countermeasures when such new information results in substantial changes to risk profiles at nuclear plants." The report cites a need to strengthen capabilities "for identifying, evaluating, and managing the risks from beyond-design-basis events," including large earthquakes or floods that occur very infrequently.

During a dial-in press conference to discuss the report, committee member B. John Garrick, a consultant in Laguna Beach, California, explained that there is also a need to assess how a severe accident, simultaneously affecting multiple reactors at one site and within a region, can complicate crisis management at a time when electricity, support, and emergency services from off-site could be disrupted, as happened at the Fukushima plant. In such circumstances, plant personnel must be trained to respond in an ad hoc manner to circumstances that are nearly impossible to completely predict, the report states.

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