The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not gone far enough in improving safety at American nuclear plants in response to the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, an independent, NRC-funded study claims.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in its second and final report on Fukushima lessons learned found that while NRC has implemented most of its recommendations, the regulator has not properly analyzed spent fuel pool vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks, and it has not independently examined surveillance and security measures for protecting stored spent fuel.
The committee that carried out the study recommended that industry and NRC improve plant operator abilities to measure real-time conditions in spent fuel pools and maintain “adequate cooling of stored spent fuel during severe accidents and terrorist attacks.”
“These improvements should go beyond the current, post-Fukushima response to include hardened and redundant physical surveillance systems such as cameras, radiation monitors, pool temperature and water-level monitors, and means to deliver makeup water or sprays to the pools, even when physical access is limited by facility damage or high radiation levels,” authors of the 238-page report said in a statement Friday.
NRC responded that day with a blog post that officials’ initial review of the report “shows nothing that presents an immediate safety or security issue.”
“The NRC remains satisfied both spent fuel pools and dry casks are safely and securely storing spent fuel,” NRC stated.
NRC staff is expected to deliver an “in-depth review of the report” to the commission later this year.
