NRC says severe reactor accidents can be mitigated - 0 views
-
Energy Net on 14 Mar 09Severe reactor accidents can be mitigated, and are unlikely to release much -- if any --radioactivity even if they are not, NRC staffers said March 11. The NRC's state-of-the-art reactor consequences analysis, or Soarca, attempts to quantify the probability and likely offsite health consequences of severe reactor accidents, beginning with Exelon Nuclear's Peach Bottom and Dominion's Surry plants. Analysis for those stations has been completed and a report will be completed by May, NRC's Charles Tinkler said in his presentation at the agency's annual Regulatory Information Conference in Rockville, Maryland. Jason Schaperow of NRC said the staff's "preliminary conclusions" are that all accident scenarios analyzed for Peach Bottom and Surry "can reasonably be mitigated." Sensitivity analyses concluded that, even if no mitigation measures were taken, there would be no large early releases of radioactivity, due to the relatively slow progression of the accidents and the small probability of containment failure, Schaperow said. Likely radioactive releases from the accidents analyzed so far in Soarca "are dramatically smaller" than those predicted in a 1982 NRC analysis conducted for use in siting new units, Schaperow said. The late Commissioner Edward McGaffigan and some industry officials were highly critical of that report, which they said was unrealistically conservative in its assumptions.