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

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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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