LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE
Fukushima Nuclear Accident
FOR IMPROVING SAFETY AND SECURITY OF
U.S. Nuclear Plants
PHASE 2
Committee on Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident
for Improving Safety and Security of U.S. Nuclear Plants
Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board
Division on Earth and Life Studies
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, DC
www.nap.edu
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001
This activity was supported by Grant No. NRC-HQ-12-G-03-0002 between the National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support for the project.
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-38888-7
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-38888-0
Digital Object Identifier: 10.17226/21874
Cover images: (Front) Satellite image of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station taken on March 14, 2011, while the accident was still in progress. The Unit 1 reactor building (lower-left corner of image) was damaged by a hydrogen explosion at 15:36 (3:36 P.M.) Japan Standard Time on March 12. The Unit 3 reactor building (building with steam plume near center of image) was damaged by a hydrogen explosion at 11:01 the day the image was recorded. The Unit 4 reactor building, which is still intact in this image, would be damaged by a hydrogen explosion at 06:14 the next day (March 15). (Back) Satellite image of the harbor-front of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station showing extensive damage from the tsunami. Also shown is a seismogram of the Great East Japan Earthquake recorded at the Oshika K-Net Station (MYG011) in Miyagi Prefecture. Satellite image courtesy of DigitalGlobe©2014.
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Copyright 2016 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety and Security of U.S. Nuclear Plants: Phase 2. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21874.
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COMMITTEE ON LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR ACCIDENT FOR IMPROVING SAFETY AND SECURITY OF U.S. NUCLEAR PLANTS
JOSEPH E. SHEPHERD, Chair, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
ROBERT A. BARI, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York
PERCY M. BEARD, JR., Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (retired), Atlanta, Georgia1
JAN BEYEA, Consulting in the Public Interest, Lambertville, New Jersey
M. QUINN BREWSTER, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign2
MICHAEL L. CORRADINI, University of Wisconsin–Madison
VIJAY K. DHIR, University of California, Los Angeles
MICHAEL W. GOLAY, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
BARBARA L. HAMRICK, University of California, Irvine Medical Center
PAUL A. LOCKE, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland
THOMAS G. MOSER, Independent Consultant, Wilmington, North Carolina
ARTHUR T. MOTTA, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
JOHN A. ORCUTT, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla
EMILIE M. ROTH, Roth Cognitive Engineering, Menlo Park, California
ELIZABETH Q. TEN EYCK, ETE Consulting, Inc., Great Falls, Virginia
FRANK N. VON HIPPEL, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
LORING A. WYLLIE, JR., Degenkolb Engineers, San Francisco, California
Staff
KEVIN D. CROWLEY, Study Director
TONI GREENLEAF, Administrative and Financial Associate
DARLENE GROS, Senior Program Assistant
___________________
1 Resigned from committee on January 7, 2015.
2 Resigned from committee on February 6, 2015.
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NUCLEAR AND RADIATION STUDIES BOARD
ROBERT C. DYNES, Chair, University of California, San Diego
BARBARA J. MCNEIL, Vice Chair, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
DAVID J. BRENNER, Columbia University, New York
MARGARET S. Y. CHU, M.S. Chu & Associates, LLC, Albuquerque, New Mexico
MICHAEL L. CORRADINI, University of Wisconsin–Madison
TISSA H. ILLANGASEKARE, Colorado School of Mines, Golden
CAROL M. JANTZEN, Savannah River National Laboratory, Aiken, South Carolina
MARTHA S. LINET, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
FRED A. METTLER, JR., New Mexico VA Health Care System, Albuquerque
NANCY JO NICHOLAS, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico
DANIEL O. STRAM, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
SERGEY V. YUDINTSEV, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
Staff
KEVIN D. CROWLEY, Director
JENNIFER HEIMBERG, Senior Program Officer
OURANIA KOSTI, Senior Program Officer
TONI GREENLEAF, Administrative and Financial Associate
LAURA D. LLANOS, Administrative and Financial Associate
DARLENE GROS, Senior Program Assistant
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Acknowledgments
The successful completion of this study would not have been possible without the cooperation and assistance of many organizations and individuals. The committee would especially like to acknowledge and thank the following organizations and individuals for their support:
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Eric Bowman, Greg Bowman, Paul Clifford, Donald Helton, Steven Jones, Christiana Lui, Jose Pires, Bill Reckley, Susan Stuchell, Glenn Tuttle, Jennifer Uhle, Sandra Wastler, Ralph Way, and Kevin Witt. Mr. Witt ably served as the agency’s liaison to the committee.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO): Kenji Tateiwa and Takashi Hara of TEPCO’s Washington, DC, office.
Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN): Franck Bigot, Laurent Gilloteau, Trégourès Nicolas, and Axelle Portier.
Japanese Embassy in the United States: Takashi Toyota.
Nuclear Energy Institute: Steven Kraft, David Kline, and Kristopher Cummings.
The committee also wishes to thank the following individuals for providing technical and policy information for this study:
Phil Amway, Exelon Corporation
Allen Croff, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (retired)
Michal I. Freedhoff, Office of Senator Edward J. Markey
Edwin Lyman, Union of Concerned Scientists
Nick Pappas, Arizona Public Service
The committee also thanks staff at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine for organizing and facilitating this study. Study Director Kevin Crowley organized the committee meetings, assisted the committee with report writing and review, and provided valuable technical and policy insights. Program Assistant Darlene Gros managed the logistics of the meetings, report review, and publication. Office of Program Security Staff, especially Detra Bodrick and Enita Williams, assisted the committee with accessing and managing the security-related information used in this study.
Reviewer Acknowledgments
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise in accordance with procedures approved by the Report Review Committee of the National Research Council. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the National Research Council in making this published report as sound as possible and will ensure that this report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their participation in the review of this report:
Peter L. Andresen, GE Global Research Center
George E. Apostolakis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (emeritus)
M. Quinn Brewster, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Randall Gauntt, Sandia National Laboratories
Robert E. Henry, Fauske & Associates, LLC (retired)
Richard T. Lahey, Jr., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (emeritus)
David Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists
Richard A. Meserve, Carnegie Institution for Science (emeritus)
Craig Sawyer, General Electric Company (retired)
Lynn R. Sykes, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University (emeritus)
Dean Wang, University of Massachusetts-Lowell
Christopher G. Whipple, ENVIRON (retired)
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions and recommendations of this report, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Marvin L. Adams, Texas A&M University, and Ali Mosleh, University of California, Los Angeles. Appointed by the National Research Council, Drs. Adams and Mosleh were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were considered carefully. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.
Contents
1.2 Strategy for Addressing the Study Charge
2 FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI NUCLEAR ACCIDENT: LESSONS LEARNED FOR SPENT FUEL STORAGE
2.1 Spent Fuel Storage at the Fukushima Daiichi Plant
2.2 Impacts of Earthquake and Tsunami on the Unit 1-4 Spent Fuel Pools
2.3 Committee Analysis of Unit 4 Pool Water Levels
3 FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI NUCLEAR ACCIDENT: LESSONS LEARNED FOR NUCLEAR PLANT SECURITY
3.1 Lessons Learned for Security at U.S. Nuclear Plants
4 REEVALUATION OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FROM PREVIOUS NAS REPORTS
4.1 Terrorist Attacks on Spent Fuel Storage or Theft of Spent Fuel
4.2 Safety and Security of Pool Storage
4.3 Safety and Security of Dry Cask Storage and Comparison with Pool Storage
5.1 Background on Risk Assessment
5.2 Application of Risk Assessment to Security
5.3 Security Risk Assessment Methodologies
5.4 Challenges for Applying Risk Assessment to Security
6 LOSS-OF-COOLANT EVENTS IN SPENT FUEL POOLS
6.1 Response of Spent Fuel Pools to Loss-of-Coolant Events
6.2 Mitigating Loss-of-Coolant Events in Spent Fuel Pools
7 EXPEDITED TRANSFER OF SPENT FUEL FROM POOLS TO DRY CASKS
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