Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Stephen Burns responded Tuesday to a report criticizing the agency’s post-Fukushima Daiichi disaster initiatives, arguing that American plants are safer now than they were when the Japanese nuclear accident occurred in March 2011.
Speaking at NRC’s annual Regulatory Information Conference in Bethesda, Md., Burns noted that he has read a quick summary of the report issued this month by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The report claims that NRC has not established clear metrics for success of its Fukushima program, and continues to use highly subjective terms like “adequate protection of public health and safety,” “reasonable staging and protection” of emergency equipment, and “substantial safety enhancements.”
The group drew particular attention to the agency’s implementation of “flex” equipment, which is the mobile cooling equipment now standard at most American nuclear plants. The flex rollout, expected to be completed by early 2017, has been regarded as the foundation for American response to Fukushima.
Friday marks the five-year anniversary of the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear accident, where a magnitude 9.0 earthquake triggered a 15-meter tsunami. The principal issue in the Fukushima event, according to the union, was loss of power and subsequent reactor cooling capabilities. The prolonged loss of power meant workers had to improvise in injecting cooling water into the reactor cores and spent fuel pools. Efforts were unsuccessful, however, leading to three core meltdowns and three hydrogen blasts, releasing massive amounts of radioactivity into the air and ocean.
Flex equipment includes a standard set of vehicles, water pumps, motors, and generators. According to NRC metrics, about two-thirds of American plants were flex compliant by the end of 2015, and almost all will be in compliance by the end of 2016. The flex rollout also includes two regional response centers in Memphis and Phoenix, with each location housing five full sets of portable equipment that can be deployed to sites in their coverage zones within 24 hours.
UCS claims that it’s unclear how effective the flex program would be in addressing the major issue experienced at Fukushima: total loss of ac power. The group also claims that NRC falls short on addressing spent fuel density issues and emergency evacuation zones.
“The NRC has decided that it is unnecessary to require reactor owners to reduce the density of highly radioactive spent fuel in reactor pools to decrease the amount of radioactivity that could be released in a fire,” the report states. “Despite the fact that high concentrations of radioactive material from Fukushima spread out some 25 miles from the site, the NRC has also decided it is unnecessary to require reactor owners to increase the radius of zones around reactor sites where emergency evacuation planning is required (currently a 10-mile radius).”
UCS argues that the NRC is putting “too many eggs in the flex basket” and not addressing safety issues that the equipment does not cover. It suggests that NRC develop a “validation strategy for flex” that the public can understand. The group recommends that NRC implement nuclear plant “stress tests” similar to the ones Europe and Japan used post-Fukushima, among other suggestions.
“The NRC should choose a set of challenging severe accident scenarios and evaluate each plant’s ability to respond to the accident from beginning to end,” the reports suggests.
Burns said Tuesday that NRC began building a foundation for severe emergency response following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and the implementation of Japan Lessons Learned has only strengthened those efforts.
“We came into the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi accident really a safe industry, in terms of what the regulatory requirements were and subject to our oversight, the performance,” Burns said. “That was a conclusion of the near-term task force that was commissioned for the 90-day review after the accident, which made the recommendation that it did not need to shut down plants at the time.”
On Wednesday, Commissioner Jeff Baran also addressed NRC’s response to Fukushima, saying that if NRC had only considered quantifiable benefits, the agency likely would have missed some important improvements and probably would not have taken the action needed
“A narrow focus on quantified cost and benefits probably would have resulted in NRC taking no regulatory action at all,” Baran said “I don’t think many people would have seen that as the right outcome.”
Baran noted that cost is easily quantified, but the same cannot be said of benefits. Security, for example, is impossible to quantify in terms of exact benefit, he said, because no one could predict the likelihood of a terrorist attack, or similar events.
“Does that mean there’s no benefit for having security at nuclear power plants? Of course not,” Baran said.
Commissioner William Ostendroff vouched for the post-Fukushima upgrades, noting that he has visited 48 reactor sites.
“This has not just been an exercise on paper — we aren’t just writing reports,” he said. “Each site has invested tens of millions of dollars into post-Fukushima upgrades. These upgrades have resulted in tangible enhancements to plant safety.”
According to NRC spokesman Scott Burnell, the agency to date has spent a little less than $50 million on Fukushima initiative implementation.
