Report finds gaps in US nuclear disaster plans

US nuclear plants must better prepare for the risk of natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis and floods, said a report today on lessons learned from Japan's Fukushima crisis in 2011.
Current approaches to regulating nuclear safety "are clearly inadequate for preventing core-melt accidents and mitigating their consequences," the report said.
As of now, US safety regulations are based on making sure nuclear plants can withstand equipment failures, loss of power and other malfunctions related to the design of the plant, otherwise known as design-basis events.
But history has shown that the biggest nuclear accidents in recent history -- including at Fukushima Daiichi, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl -- "were all initiated by beyond-design-basis events," said the report.

Things like natural disasters, human errors and power outages "have the potential to affect large geographical regions and multiple nuclear plants," said John Garrick, a nuclear engineer and co-author of the report.
"These include earthquakes, tsunamis and other geographically extensive floods and such things as geomagnetic disturbances," Garrick told reporters.

Titled "Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving the Safety of US Plants," the report was commissioned by Congress from the National Academy of Sciences, a non-governmental group of experts that provides scientific and policy advice.
The March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami knocked out power to the Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing severe core damage in three reactors, releases of radioactive material, widespread evacuations and the eventual shutdown of all nuclear power plants in Japan.

The report did not find fault with Japan's actions before or after the incident.
Rather, it called for nuclear plants and US nuclear regulators to actively seek out the latest scientific data on risks and revise their plans accordingly.
The United States operates 100 nuclear power reactors, whose safety procedures are overseen by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Nuclear plants should be ready to respond to a wide-spanning natural disaster that could damage infrastructure and disperse radioactive material beyond their 10-mile emergency planning zone, the report said.
It cited a number of off-site events that could interfere with electrical power to nuclear operations, from terrorism to human error to geomagnetic disturbances caused by solar storms that interrupt the electrical grid.

"There is some new evidence now that some of these events are not as rare as perhaps we thought," said Garrick.