IAEA Fukushima Report highlights the unsafety and diseconomics of nuclear power

To sum up, when you build a reactor you are committing to controlling the nuclear fury at its heart for half a century or more, and controlling the waste produced for many thousands of years (using methods no-one has yet developed)……

But the real lesson is that it is impossible to cover all eventualities. That means nuclear power is not safe or, given the colossal clean-up costs, cheap. Regretfully, I believe it is an illusory answer to the problem of rising greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Fukushima report shows nuclear power can never be safe and cheap, by Damian Carrington 20 June 2011 guardian.co.uk The first “independent” review of the safety failures during Japan’s nuclear disaster reveals some chillingly obvious “lessons” to be learned

..The first “independent” review of the Fukushima nuclear disaster was published today and it does not make reassuring reading.

Japan is perhaps the most technologically advanced nation on Earth and yet, time after time, the report finds missing measures that I would have expected to already be in place. It highlights the fundamental inability for anyone to anticipate all future events and so deeply undermines the claims of the nuclear industry and its supporters that this time, with the new generation of reactors, things will be different.

I used quote marks on the word “independent” because the report comes from the International Atomic Energy Association (pdf) (IAEA) which, while independent of Japan, is far from independent from the nuclear industry it was founded to promote. But this conflict of interest only makes the findings of the IEAE’s experts more startling.

So let’s take a look at some of the 15 conclusions and 16 lessons (I’ve edited a bit for brevity).

There were insufficient defence-in-depth provisions for tsunami hazards. In particular, although tsunami hazards were considered [in] 2002, the tsunami hazard was underestimated. Moreover, those additional protective measures were not reviewed and approved by the regulatory authority. Severe accident management provisions were not adequate to cope with multiple plant failures.

So, they looked at the tsunami risk, badly underestimated the scale of what was needed and then the regulator failed to check their work.

Japan has a well organized emergency preparedness and response system … and dedicated and devoted officials and workers. [But] complicated structures and organizations can result in delays in urgent decision making.

Even in one of the best nuclear safety regimes, the complexity of accidents can overwhelm the emergency response.

The siting and design of nuclear plants should include sufficient protection against infrequent and complex combinations of external events and these should be considered in the plant safety analysis;
Any changes in external hazards or understanding of them should be periodically reviewed for their impact on the current plant configuration

This, in other words, says that the unexpected will occur and tacitly admits it can’t be planned for………

Nuclear regulatory systems should ensure that regulatory independence [is] preserved in all circumstances.

The last lesson is also chilling, when you consider the implied alternative.

On those timescales, unforeseen events are a certainty, with hugely costly consequences. The earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan were extreme, and the IAEA report tries to argues that new nuclear safety regulations should learn lessons from the failure of the system at Fukushima to cope.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2011/jun/20/nuclearpower-nuclear-waste