The US nuclear industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) should be more proactive about hazards that could affect the safety of nuclear plants, says a new report from the National Research Council.
The committee that wrote the report acknowledged the additional safety measures that were ordered by the NRC and are being implemented by the nuclear industry since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident (see Physics Today, May 2011, page 18, and January 2013, page 20), but the committee did not assess their adequacy. The steps include installing hardened vents in the containment vessels of boiling-water reactors; adding thermometers to spent-fuel pools; and stationing generators, fuel, and other emergency response equipment nearby to cope with a potential loss of power to the plant as occurred at Fukushima.
The industry and the NRC should give specific attention to improving plant systems operation and training for catastrophic events,...