nuclear-news

Sweden gets a new Nuclear Emergency Plan

Nuclear Engineering International 22d May 2020, Sweden’s Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) announced this week, that inaccordance with an SSM proposal, the government had decided on new emergency zones for operations with ionising radiation.

For Swedish nuclear power plants, this means an internal and an external emergency zone as well
as a planning zone with an approximate extent of 5, 25 and 100 kilometres
respectively. “The change is important in order to improve the
possibility of implementing effective protective measures in connection
with a nuclear accident,” SSM said.

In 2017, SSM, in collaboration with the Swedish Agency for Social Protection and Emergency Preparedness, the County Administrative Boards in Uppsala, Kalmar, Hallands, Södermanland,
Västmanland and Skåne and the municipality of Lund and the Rescue
Services South, reported an assignment to the government where the agency
proposed to make emergency preparedness zones.

The Government has now
decided on a new regulation (2003: 789) on accident prevention, which means
that the emergency zones for nuclear facilities are being redone, in
accordance with that proposal. In the zones, iodine tablets should be
pre-distributed, the population should be able to be alerted quickly and
there must be a planning for evacuation and indoor stay. Evacuation of the
internal emergency zone must be prioritised over evacuation of the external
emergency zone.

A planning zone will also be introduced where there will be
a planning for evacuation based on radiation from the ground cover
radiation, a planning for indoor living and a planning for limited extra
distribution of iodine tablets. “This means, when the emergency zones are
fully implemented, that Sweden meets international requirements for
emergency preparedness for these operations, while lessons learned from the
nuclear accident in Fukushima have been taken care of, said SSM specialist
Jan Johansson.

https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsnew-emergency-zones-for-swedish-nuclear-power-plants-7936755

May 26, 2020 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, Sweden