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Keywords: Broken Arrows; nuclear weapons; accidents; safety; command and control; close call EN Broken Arrows nuclear weapons accidents safety command and control close call 148 154 7 05/16/23 20230501 NES 230501 In the world of accidents, close calls, and near-misses, perhaps nothing is more chilling than incidents involving nuclear weapons. So, to answer your question, the US Defense Department uses "Broken Arrow" to mean a nuclear accident with a US weapon that caused the unauthorized launch or jettisoning of a nuclear weapon, a fire, an explosion, a radioactive release, or a full-scale detonation. More important, the large number of close calls and near-misses shows that no system for safeguarding nuclear weapons can ever be 100-percent effective - meaning that the United States (and other nuclear weapons nations, which have Broken Arrows of their own) can never completely eliminate the potential for catastrophic nuclear error. B Schlosser: b Right, we're not talking about close calls or near-misses with Russian weapons, British weapons, French weapons, or what might have happened with weapons in India, Pakistan, North Korea, China... Worldwide, we have no idea how many nuclear-weapon accidents have occurred. [Extracted from the article]

Before the Fukushima disaster unfolded in 2011, Japanese government and energy company officials were aware of the warning signs and risks of a potential crisis at the reactor site. They failed to use safety mechanisms or update regulations over time to address the vulnerabilities of the power plants. Because interest groups had led the public to believe the power plants were completely safe, the plants were run with little accountability. Following this disaster, Japan established a new nuclear regulatory commission and nuclear regulatory authority in and implemented new regulatory mechanisms. These efforts have been limited, however, and have shifted the issue from regulation to implementation. The enormous cost of meeting new safety protocols has created new barriers for restarting the power plants under updated regulations, but the energy demands of the country will remain. The tension between managing operational risks and meeting public energy needs will test the public and private sectors' ability to sufficiently revamp the nuclear industry and prevent crises in years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently declassified material and other information that has never before appeared in the public domain allow the authors to explain some of the workings of the Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST)—often one of the first units to respond whenever there is a nuclear incident, whether it involves a nuclear reactor or a nuclear weapon. Long the subject of mystique, NEST is often depicted on screen as a secretive government unit with highly specialized capabilities and harrowing missions. The reality is at once more mundane and more remarkable. Formed in the 1970s in response to a spate of nuclear blackmail attempts, NEST has been at the center of every major nuclear event from the accident at Three Mile Island to the disaster at Fukushima. Other operations, unknown to the public, are described here for perhaps the first time. Historical accounts provide a glimpse into the breadth of the organization's missions, from neutralizing terrorist nuclear devices to responding to nuclear reactor accidents. The diversity of NEST's missions and the uniqueness of its scientific capabilities set the unit apart as a national asset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Susan Solomon points out in her interview for this issue, the planet had a climate change near-miss when the hole in the ozone layer threatened to become so large that, in her words, "by the year 2050 there pretty much would have been an ozone hole everywhere over the whole planet. And, fortuitously, it turned out that by banning CFCs, the protocol eliminated a very potent greenhouse gas, thus helping in fighting climate change. Schlosser says these and other declassified reports show that no system for safeguarding nuclear weapons will ever be 100-percent effective, and that the United States (and other nuclear weapons nations, which have their own Broken Arrows) can never completely eliminate the potential for a catastrophic nuclear error. [Extracted from the article]

After the Fukushima disaster of March 2011, the government of Japan created new regulations for nuclear power and nuclear reprocessing (i.e. the recycling of spent fuel). The new compliance review process deserves credit for closing some safety gaps, and if the owners of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant, a major facility under construction for more than two decades now, implement adequate measures and operate the facility as expected based on the new requirements, the plant's safety could certainly improve. However, potential risks have thus far gone unaddressed by the new review process, and unless the government deals with these problems, it will not be able to ensure maximum safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Fukushima disaster, the authors analyzed all past core-melt accidents and estimated a failure rate of 1 per 3704 reactor years. This rate indicates that more than one such accident could occur somewhere in the world within the next decade. The authors also analyzed the role that learning from past accidents can play over time. This analysis showed few or no learning effects occurring, depending on the database used. Because the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has no publicly available list of nuclear accidents, the authors used data compiled by the Guardian newspaper and the energy researcher Benjamin Sovacool. The results suggest that there are likely to be more severe nuclear accidents than have been expected and support Charles Perrow's "normal accidents" theory that nuclear power reactors cannot be operated without major accidents. However, a more detailed analysis of nuclear accident probabilities needs more transparency from the IAEA. Public support for nuclear power cannot currently be based on full knowledge simply because important information is not available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aftermath of the failure of two reactors in the spring of 2011 at Fukushima, Japan, involves more than background radiation or cleanup. In addition to deciding "safe" levels of radioactivity, regional authorities must also deal with the needs of those who were forcibly evacuated - and whether, five years later, the evacuees even want to return to their old homes. To overcome these and other problems, Fukushima University set up its "Fukushima Future Studies" program, which aims to learn about the long-term effects of a nuclear power plant accident, with an emphasis on hands-on, practical matters. In this interview, William McMichael, an assistant professor who runs part of the core curriculum of Fukushima Future Studies, talks with Bulletin Associate Editor Dan Drollette Jr. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Switzerland has long met a good portion of its energy needs by using nuclear power. But in the wake of the accident at Fukushima, the country will have to turn elsewhere—while still remaining true to its history of self-sufficiency and energy independence. This effort is made more complicated by fears that one of its traditional energy sources, hydropower, may no longer be as reliable as in the past. But with a combination of energy conservation, greater efficiencies, alternative energy sources, the “smart grid,” and the introduction of new technologies currently on the drawing board, the country may readily be able to replace the energy lost by the closing of its existing nuclear power plants. And the loss of the snowpack and glaciers (due to climate change) may not be as dire for Switzerland’s hydropower as first anticipated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan’s March 2011 triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown shattered the country’s nuclear-dependent energy policy. Questions about the long-term consequences of Fukushima still linger, but a political and economic re-evaluation of the costs and benefits of this high-risk technology is long overdue. Concerns about the future role of nuclear power are part of the larger international debate about energy security and climate change. Germany is frequently seen as leading the way toward a clean-energy future with its nuclear exit and renewables expansion, but both Japan and Germany have managed to maintain a secure energy supply with dramatically reduced—or even zero—nuclear power since 2011. A comparison of similarities and differences between Japan and Germany helps to explain each country’s responses to Fukushima and to draw out key lessons for future energy systems. Energy policies that scrutinize vested interests of the industry and allow for more decentralized energy systems, relying on more renewable energy sources and more programs for emissions reductions, are key in shaping the inevitable big shift. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi accident have focused on preventive measures designed to protect nuclear reactors, and crisis management plans. Although there is still no end in sight to the accident that occurred on March 11, 2011, how engineers have handled the aftermath offers new insight into the capacity of organizations to adapt in situations that far exceed the scope of safety standards based on probabilistic risk assessment and on the comprehensive identification of disaster scenarios. Ongoing crises in which conventional resources are lacking, but societal expectations are high, call for “engineering thinking in emergency situations.” This is a new concept that emphasizes adaptability and resilience within organizations—such as the ability to create temporary new organizational structures; to quickly switch from a normal state to an innovative mode; and to integrate a social dimension into engineering activities. In the future, nuclear safety oversight authorities should assess the ability of plant operators to create and implement effective engineering strategies on the fly, and should require that operators demonstrate the capability for resilience in the aftermath of an accident. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After digesting lessons from US operations during the Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan, the White House National Security Council staff created several interagency working groups to examine procedural issues associated with responding to international chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) incidents. What emerged were best practices and lessons learned designed to transform data to decisions across the many levels of government during an international CBRN incident for those people making life-saving and life-sustaining choices. Actions at both the strategic and operational levels are needed to enable a country to more effectively transfer its domestic response capabilities and infrastructure to an international consequence management response. International complications include varying organizational relationships and legal authorities; resource limitations in overseas jurisdictions; nonstandard sources and formats of information; differing public health and protection standards; and language barriers. The technical data needed for emergency personnel to safely and effectively respond to CBRN incidents are especially difficult to obtain, require specialized analytical tools to process, and demand particular procedures for sharing in an international context. Without addressing these issues up front, any country responding to a CBRN event beyond its borders may struggle to effectively respond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Japanese village of Iitate received some of the highest radiation exposures resulting from the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, particularly on March 15, 2011. Iitate, which had previously been a model eco-village, is still heavily contaminated. The village's abundance of forested area not only makes decontamination difficult but may also cause re-contamination of areas after they are cleaned up. Before the accident, many households in Iitate had multiple generations living under one roof, but many families were forced to split up when they evacuated. Villagers are now living in dispersed housing or in temporary units constructed after the accident. Many villagers, particularly young families, have given up hope of returning to Iitate anytime soon. It will take decades for the radioactivity to naturally decay. In the meantime, the author proposes creating new settlements so that villagers can rebuild their lives and sense of community while retaining the right to return to Iitate. Villages torn apart by tsunami damage are being allowed to move to higher ground as entire communities; the author argues that Iitate and other villages devastated by radiation should have similar rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a worker at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station gives his eyewitness account of what happened there on March 11, 2011, in the immediate wake of a massive earthquake and tsunami that caused three of the station’s reactor cores to melt. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As of December 1, 2013, a total of 429 nuclear reactors were considered operational in 31 countries. The nuclear industry is in decline, however, with global electricity generation from nuclear power plants down by a record 7 percent in 2012. This decline is largely due to the effects of the triple disaster that struck Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in March 2011. All of Japan’s nuclear reactors are shut down, and the struggle to manage radioactive water and a radiation-exposed workforce continues at Fukushima. Currently there are 69 reactors under construction worldwide, 29 of which are in China, but the average age of existing reactors has been increasing steadily. The industry continues to face economic challenges including lengthy construction times, uncertainty about new reactor designs, and difficulty financing projects. Although global investment in renewable energy capacity declined in 2013, the costs of equipment also declined, making it possible to significantly increase renewable capacity. Three of the world’s four largest economies now run on a higher share of renewables than nuclear power. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant highlighted the promise and shortcomings of robots. Had robots been able to quickly enter the plant and vent accumulated hydrogen, a meltdown could have been averted, but training requirements and technology limitations delayed their deployment. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency launched the DARPA Robotics Challenge to catalyze development of semi-autonomous robots capable of operating in dangerous, degraded environments so society is prepared to respond to future disasters. The challenge brings together robotics systems and software experts from around the world in a series of competitions to overcome technological obstacles related to robotic mobility, manipulation, perception, human–robot interface, and actuation. Over a period of less than three years, DARPA expects the field of robotics to undergo a historic transformation that could drive innovation in robots for defense, health care, agriculture, and industry. DARPA outlines its objectives for the challenge, addresses the ethics and present realities of robotics, and charts the development path to capable, cost-effective systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments and the nuclear power industry have a strong interest in playing down the harmful effects of radiation from atomic weapons and nuclear power plants. Over the years, some scientists have supported the view that low levels of radiation are not harmful, while other scientists have held that all radiation is harmful. The author examines the radiation effects of nuclear bombs dropped on Japan in 1945; nuclear weapons testing; plutonium plant accidents at Windscale in England and Chelyabinsk in the Soviet Union; nuclear power plant emissions during normal operations; and the power plant accidents at Three Mile Island in the United States, Chernobyl in the Soviet Union, and Fukushima Daiichi in Japan. In each case, he finds a pattern of minimizing the damage to humans and attributing evidence of shortened life spans mostly to stress and social dislocation rather than to radiation. While low-level radiation is now generally accepted as harmful, its effects are deemed to be so small that they cannot be distinguished from the much greater effects of stress and social dislocation. Thus, some scientists declare that there is no point in even studying the populations exposed to the radioactive elements released into the atmosphere during the 2011 accident at Fukushima. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reviews the recent shift in Japan’s nanotechnology policy and regulation, analyzing policy documents and government guidelines as well as interviews with prominent scientists and government officials. The authors consider the potential role of nanotechnology in addressing Japan’s pressing energy security challenges after the Fukushima nuclear accident. They find that Japan’s regulatory focus on preventing and controlling exposure to nanoparticles, rather than on merely reporting and registering the use of nanomaterials, arguably provides greater flexibility and societal support for scientists to experiment with a variety of ideas for using nanomaterials—particularly solar power technologies for distributed energy generation, such as artificial photosynthesis. Japan provides a valuable case study of two major economic and political challenges to the development of energy-related nanotechnologies: industry pressure to continue investing primarily in centralized electricity generation from sources that are environmentally risky but profitable to major power companies, such as nuclear power and fossil fuels; and growing public interest in the research, development, and rapid rollout of nanotechnology-enhanced renewable energy sources that are well suited for distributed energy generation, while the effectiveness of nanotechnology regulation is still being tested. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is tempting to attribute variations in support for nuclear power to prominent accidents such as Three Mile Island in the United States or Fukushima in Japan. To illuminate how such attribution can be problematic, the authors discuss the historical context of the Three Mile Island accident in the United States. They point out that the US nuclear industry faced major challenges even before the 1979 accident: Forty percent of all US reactor cancellations between 1960 and 2010, they write, occurred before the accident in Pennsylvania. While safety concerns were undoubtedly a driver of public aversion to new nuclear construction in the United States, the nuclear industry already faced substantial economic and competitiveness obstacles, much like the nuclear industry worldwide before Fukushima. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the two years since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accidents, countries around the world have responded to the Japanese catastrophe in a variety of ways. Broadly speaking, these policy responses fall into three categories: Within one group, countries have decided to turn away from nuclear power, either through a gradual phase-out or by abandoning plans for programs that had not yet begun. In the second group of countries, government leaders who were otherwise inclined to continue pursuing nuclear power were forced by protests and public opinion to change their policies. And in the third group, countries have reiterated their commitment to nuclear power. The author describes examples of countries within each of these categories. He identifies several common elements that seem to be at play in countries that are staying the course on nuclear power, including: hasty dismissals by government officials of the Fukushima accident’s applicability to their own countries, pronouncements about the safety of deployed or proposed reactor designs, propaganda campaigns, international financing for reactor construction, and an emphasis on projected growth in energy demand. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many countries rethought their domestic nuclear power programs after the meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. In fact, even France—which generates half of the European Union’s nuclear electricity—has a new approach to nuclear power and to energy policy. President François Hollande vowed to reduce use of nuclear power, and his administration is moving to close the country’s two oldest reactors at Fessenheim. The government also plans to sponsor a large public debate on the future of energy policy in France, and that discussion is supposed to include all major stakeholders. It remains unclear, however, whether the debate will be a democratic exercise that influences the policy-making process, or if policy will continue to be determined by the technocratic elites who have guided France’s energy and nuclear programs from their outset. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In July 2002, Germany amended its Atomic Energy Act so no new nuclear power plants could be built and existing power plants would continue running only for a limited time. In 2009, however, a coalition led by Chancellor Angela Merkel took control of the German government and reversed the country’s nuclear phase-out policy, extending nuclear plant operating lives and announcing that risks associated with nuclear energy were insignificant. Three months later, just days after the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Japan, the German government abruptly reversed course again, closing eight older nuclear power plants and eventually ordering the nine remaining plants to cease operations by 2022, at the latest. Three out of the four operators of German nuclear power plants have since taken legal action, seeking compensation for profits supposedly lost as a result of the nuclear policy change. But due to a number of factors—including the German constitution, which places a duty on the government to protect citizens, and the nuclear operators’ participation in the original 2002 agreement to phase out nuclear power—most legal observers believe these legal challenges to Germany’s nuclear exit are destined to fail. The German nuclear exit includes financial compromises that allow nuclear operators to recoup investments in their nuclear power plants, and the legal protection these compromises provide to the government may be the part of the German initiative that is of most interest to other countries considering nuclear exits. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The German decision to phase out nuclear energy following the Fukushima crisis builds on earlier political decisions to support the growth of renewable electricity, to improve energy efficiency, and to turn Germany toward sustainable energy and away from nuclear power. Germany is now embarking on what is known as the Energiewende, a plan to turn the entire economy to a low-carbon energy structure that does not make use of nuclear energy. The last nuclear power plants are scheduled to be shut down in 2022. Although there are still many skeptics of the phase-out plan, it has support across the political spectrum; Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Christian Democratic Union sees this as one of her top priorities, as do the opposition Greens and Social Democratic Party. In part, this support stems from the financial benefits that the shift to renewables has brought to many small- and medium-sized German businesses. The expansion of renewable energy capacity has been dramatic and now accounts for one-quarter of electricity production, up from about 3 percent in 1990. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nuclear exit has been on the German policy agenda for more than three decades. After the Chernobyl accident in 1986, a majority of the public and relevant stakeholders opposed nuclear power and strove for renewable energy alternatives. At the same time, climate change policy gained the attention of German policy makers, and they approved ambitious targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2000, the federal government and the operators of nuclear power plants reached a phase-out agreement, and since 2002, the purpose of the Atomic Energy Act has been not the promotion but the phasing-out of commercial nuclear electricity generation. After the federal elections in 2009, the conservative–liberal coalition government implemented a slow-down of the phase-out. But that reversal provoked strong negative public reaction, and in response to the nuclear disaster in Japan, the German cabinet and the Bundestag agreed in the summer of 2011 to a gradual phase-out of nuclear power that will shut down the industry by 2022. They also agreed to accelerate the transformation of Germany’s energy portfolio. This transformation, or Energiewende, will include three key methods of replacing the electricity once produced by nuclear reactors: It will expand renewable energy production and provide the infrastructure needed for that expansion; it will significantly improve the country’s energy-efficiency efforts; and for a transition period, it will also encourage the construction of new and more efficient coal- and gas-fired power plants. Already, the Energiewende has observably decoupled energy supply from economic growth, with Germany’s energy supply and carbon-dioxide emissions dropping from 1990 to 2011 as its gross domestic product rose significantly. It is this evolving Energiewende, rather than the nuclear phase-out, that will require and, perhaps, inspire continuing reforms of social, economic, technological, and cultural policy in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Shortly after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, Germany’s government started preparing legislation that would close the country’s last nuclear power plant by 2022. But this wasn’t an entirely new development: Germany had been planning to leave nuclear energy behind for decades, and to understand its nuclear phase-out requires a close look at the past. Several projects and events mark the beginnings of the German anti-nuclear power movement: Among them are the huge protests over the Brokdorf reactor, which began in 1976 and led to civil war-like confrontations with police, and the controversy over the Kalkar fast-neutron reactor in the mid-1970s. Because of these and subsequent developments—including the 1986 Chernobyl accident—by the 1990s, no one in German political life seriously entertained the idea of new reactor construction. This tacit policy consensus led to energy forecasts and scenarios that focused on energy efficiency, demand reduction, and renewable energy sources. By the time of the Fukushima accidents, many of these new energy priorities had already begun to be implemented and to show effect. Replacing nuclear power in Germany with other energy sources on an accelerated schedule is likely to come with a price tag, but, at the same time, Germany’s nuclear phase-out could provide a proof-of-concept, demonstrating the political and technical feasibility of abandoning a controversial high-risk technology. Germany’s nuclear phase-out, successful or not, may well become a game changer for nuclear energy worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The market niche that nuclear power once held is disappearing. The key nuclear indicators—including the number of operating reactors, installed capacity, power generation, and share of total electricity generation—all show that the global nuclear industry is in decline. In 2012, nuclear power’s competitors—most notably, wind and solar generation—are rapidly gaining market share as long lead times, construction delays, cost overruns, and safety concerns have combined to make nuclear power a risky investment that the markets are increasingly unwilling to make. To renew the aging world nuclear fleet, nuclear utilities would need to surmount a number of major problems, including a short-term manufacturing bottleneck, a shortage of skilled workers, regulatory uncertainty, a skeptical financial sector, and negative public opinion. The aftermath of the Fukushima disaster and the world economic crisis have only exacerbated these problems. The authors write that a realistic scenario that leads to an increase in nuclear’s share of the world’s electricity is hard to imagine. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the wake of the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, opinion makers and policy makers, alike, have worked internationally to pique interest in thorium as a possible alternative fuel for commercial nuclear reactors. The key question posed has been: Could a thorium-based fuel provide advantages if deployed in current reactors? A full thorium-driven cycle used to produce and use uranium-233 for power generation has been understood to possess a range of benefits for many decades. To fully assess the practical utility of thorium use in existing light water reactors, it is necessary to critically dissect the promoted benefits of the thorium fuel cycle. The potential advantages of thorium are relatively small, the author writes, when viewed through the lens of current infrastructure and economic and political realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cost of building new nuclear reactors receives a great deal of attention in market economies, including the United States, Japan, and Germany. But in a post-Fukushima era of additional safety regulations, the economics of keeping a fleet of aging reactors online may command just as much attention. The author reviews the experience of the US nuclear reactor fleet in light of the post-Fukushima scrutiny of nuclear safety and describes the factors that have influenced, and will likely influence, future decisions about whether to own and operate nuclear reactors. He shows that safety has been the driver of nuclear costs and that the inability of the industry to deliver safe reactors at affordable costs is an endemic, long-standing problem. Nuclear power, he writes, is a complex technology based on a catastrophically dangerous resource that is vulnerable to natural events and human frailties, which suggests that nuclear safety and affordable reactors are currently incompatible and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate science and nuclear weapons testing have a long and surprisingly intimate relationship. The global networks that monitored the Fukushima radiation plume and forecasted its movement are the direct descendants of systems and computer models developed to trace fallout from weapons tests. Tracing radioactive carbon as it cycles through the atmosphere, the oceans, and the biosphere has been crucial to understanding anthropogenic climate change. The earliest global climate models relied on numerical methods very similar to those developed by nuclear weapons designers for solving the fluid dynamics equations needed to analyze shock waves produced in nuclear explosions. The climatic consequences of nuclear war also represent a major historical intersection between climate science and nuclear affairs. Without the work done by nuclear weapons designers and testers, scientists would know much less than they now do about the atmosphere. In particular, this research has contributed enormously to knowledge about both carbon dioxide, which raises Earth’s temperature, and aerosols, which lower it. Without climate models, scientists and political leaders would not have understood the full extent of nuclear weapons’ power to annihilate not only human beings, but other species as well. In the post-Cold War era, US national laboratories built to create the most fearsome arsenal in history are now using their powerful supercomputers, their expertise in modeling, and their skills in managing very large data sets to address the threat of catastrophic climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The emerging crisis at the plant was complex, and, to make matters worse, it was exacerbated by communication gaps between the government and the nuclear industry. An independent investigation panel, established by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, reviewed how the government, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), and other relevant actors responded. In this article, the panel’s program director writes about their findings and how these players were thoroughly unprepared on almost every level for the cascading nuclear disaster. This lack of preparation was caused, in part, by a public myth of “absolute safety” that nuclear power proponents had nurtured over decades and was aggravated by dysfunction within and between government agencies and Tepco, particularly in regard to political leadership and crisis management. The investigation also found that the tsunami that began the nuclear disaster could and should have been anticipated and that ambiguity about the roles of public and private institutions in such a crisis was a factor in the poor response at Fukushima. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A Fukushima-like nuclear accident does not have to be caused by nature. Similar results could be wrought by a dedicated terrorist group that gained access to a nuclear power plant and disabled its safety systems. To guard against natural accidents, terrorist sabotage, and possible combinations of these two classes of events, nuclear plant operators and regulators should consider a combined approach called nuclear safety-security. Although safety and security programs have different requirements, they overlap in key areas and could support and enhance one another. Nuclear facilities could improve safety-security in technical ways, including more secure emergency electrical supplies, better security for control rooms, and, at new plants, reactor containment structures built to survive attacks by terrorist-flown airplanes. At the institutional level, regulators could strengthen the safety-security interface by requiring that it be built into the life cycle of nuclear plants, from design to dismantlement. The authors offer technical and institutional recommendations on how, for example, the International Atomic Energy Agency can support improved safety-security at nuclear plants globally by creating design standards that relate to both accidents and threats while encouraging countries to accept International Physical Protection Advisory Service missions that review security and physical protection systems and provide advice on best practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments regulate risky industrial systems such as nuclear power plants in hopes of making them less risky, and a variety of formal and informal warning systems can help society avoid catastrophe. Governments, businesses, and citizens respond when disaster occurs. But recent history is rife with major disasters accompanied by failed regulation, ignored warnings, inept disaster response, and commonplace human error. Furthermore, despite the best attempts to forestall them, “normal” accidents will inevitably occur in the complex, tightly coupled systems of modern society, resulting in the kind of unpredictable, cascading disaster seen at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Government and business can always do more to prevent serious accidents through regulation, design, training, and mindfulness. Even so, some complex systems with catastrophic potential are just too dangerous to exist, because they cannot be made safe, regardless of human effort. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In a report to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Japanese government stated that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was caused not by the Tohoku earthquake but by the tsunami it generated, resulting in a loss of power for the station's cooling systems and, consequently, three core meltdowns. The tsunami countermeasures taken when Fukushima Daiichi was designed in the 1960s were, arguably, marginally acceptable considering the scientific data then available. But, between the 1970s and the 2011 disaster, new scientific knowledge emerged about the likelihood of a large earthquake and resulting tsunami; however, this was ignored by both the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, and government regulators. The regulatory authorities failed to properly review the tsunami countermeasures in accordance with IAEA guidelines and continued to allow the Fukushima plant to operate without sufficient countermeasures, despite having received clear warnings from at least one member of a government advisory committee. The lack of independence of government regulators appears to have contributed to this inaction. The anzen shinwa (“safety myth”) image portrayed by the Japanese government and electric power companies tended to stifle honest and open discussion of the risks. Japan's seismological agencies are locked into outdated and unsuccessful paradigms that lead them to focus on the hazard of a supposedly imminent earthquake in the Tokai district, located between Tokyo and Nagoya, while downplaying earthquake hazards elsewhere in Japan. Consequently, regulators and the plant operator missed many opportunities to avert the calamity at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Months after the accident unfolded at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the nuclear crisis continues. Though the worst, it seems, has passed, many technical, social, legal, and economic hurdles must be overcome. Major short-term challenges include stabilizing the reactors and managing more than 100,000 tons of contaminated water, as well as cleaning up the site, which still contains a large amount of contaminated debris from the accident. Long-term challenges include dealing with spent fuel in the storage pools and damaged fuel in the reactors, as well as decommissioning the reactors. In a 670-page report to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Japanese government explored its next steps in managing the crisis. In this article, the author revisits the tragedy at the nuclear station and highlights a few of the most pressing—and most challenging—of the government’s plans. The author writes that Fukushima should contain lessons not just for Japan but for all 31 countries with nuclear power. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Internet made an enormous amount of information on Fukushima available, far more than was provided by the media during the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents. While journalists contributed much of the news about Fukushima, citizens actively participated in blogs and on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, exchanging views and directing others to important news articles or videos. The Internet also gave the traditional media many opportunities for better coverage, with more space for articles and the ability to publish interactive graphics and videos. Coverage in The New York Times, for example, included an abundance of background and explanatory information about the Fukushima accident and radiation releases in multiple formats and gave readers the opportunity to better understand technical information. Consequently, radiation coverage of the Fukushima accident was better than that of the Three Mile Island or Chernobyl accidents. Television reporting, however, still presented some problems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The release of radioactivity into the atmosphere from the Fukushima Daiichi accident has been estimated by Japan’s government as about one-tenth of that from the Chernobyl accident. The area in Japan contaminated with cesium-137—at the same levels that caused evacuation around Chernobyl—is also about one-tenth as large. The estimated number of resulting cancer deaths in the Fukushima area from contamination due to more than 1 curie per square kilometer is likely to scale correspondingly—on the order of 1,000. On March 16, 2011, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission advised Americans in the region to evacuate out to 50 miles (NRC 2011a). If the Japanese government had made the same recommendation to its citizens, it would have resulted in the early evacuation of about two million people instead of 130,000. Because contaminated milk was interdicted in Japan, the number of (mostly non-fatal) thyroid cancer cases will probably be less than 1 percent of similar cases in Chernobyl. Unless properly dealt with, however, fear of ionizing radiation could have long-term psychological effects on a large portion of the population in the contaminated areas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The nuclear industry has claimed that a Fukushima-type event is unlikely to happen in the United States, because few US nuclear power plants are vulnerable to tsunamis. But to some degree, every nuclear plant is vulnerable to natural disaster or deliberate attack, and no nuclear plant can be assumed to withstand an event more severe than the “design-basis accidents” it was engineered to withstand. Many US nuclear plants appear to be subject to greater risks than they were designed to handle, particularly in regard to earthquakes. The author suggests that the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission should expand the universe of events that new and existing nuclear plants must be designed to survive and require reactors to be upgraded accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced that Japan should meet its energy needs without nuclear power plants. But his statement may have little relevance in the next administration. There is a complex power struggle underway over the future of nuclear energy in Japan involving political, governmental, industry, and union groups. Despite the seriousness of the Fukushima crisis, Japan’s historical commitment to nuclear power—and a fuel cycle that includes reprocessing and breeder reactors—still has powerful supporters. Even with a scale-down of nuclear power, there is a possibility that the policy of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel will continue as a matter of political inertia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The effects of the tragedy at Japan’s Fukushima power plant will continue to reverberate over the upcoming weeks, months, and years. And, as the writers in this symposium explain, the consequences of the disaster go beyond Japan—like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, Fukushima will reshape nuclear agendas and policies in countries around the world. In this Global Forum, leading experts reflect on the current and future implications of Fukushima for their own countries—the United States, the European Union, and South Korea. Mark Cooper (2011) writes from the United States; Caroline Jorant from the European Union; and Soon Heung Chang (2011) from South Korea. In August, this forum will continue as a Roundtable at www.thebulletin.org. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The effects of the tragedy at Japan’s Fukushima power plant will continue to reverberate over the upcoming weeks, months, and years. And, as the writers in this symposium explain, the consequences of the disaster go beyond Japan—like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, Fukushima will reshape nuclear agendas and policies in countries around the world. In this Global Forum, leading experts reflect on the current and future implications of Fukushima for their own countries—the United States, the European Union, and South Korea. Mark Cooper (2011) writes from the United States; Caroline Jorant (2011) from the European Union; and Soon Heung Chang from South Korea. In August, this forum will continue as a Roundtable at www.thebulletin.org. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The effects of the tragedy at Japan’s Fukushima power plant will continue to reverberate over the upcoming weeks, months, and years. And, as the writers in this symposium explain, the consequences of the disaster go beyond Japan—like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, Fukushima will reshape nuclear agendas and policies in countries around the world. In this Global Forum, leading experts reflect on the current and future implications of Fukushima for their own countries—the United States, the European Union, and South Korea. Mark Cooper writes from the United States; Caroline Jorant (2011) from the European Union; and Soon Heung Chang (2011) from South Korea. In August, this forum will continue as a Roundtable at www.thebulletin.org. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2010, there were more nuclear power units under construction worldwide than in any year since 1988. Even before Fukushima, however, status indicators for the international nuclear industry were showing a negative trend. Fewer countries are operating nuclear fission reactors for energy purposes than in previous years, and many countries are now past their nuclear peak. Worldwide nuclear production is generally declining, and many new projects are experiencing construction delays. Even if reactors can be operated for an average of 40 years, 74 new plants would have to come on line by 2015 to maintain the status quo, which is impossible given current constraints on fabricating reactor components. Developments in Asia, particularly in China, do not fundamentally change the global picture. The dramatic post-Fukushima decisions in two of the four largest economies, Japan and Germany, and in several other nuclear countries could accelerate the decline of a rapidly aging industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The events at Fukushima Daiichi have greatly renewed the public focus on the safety of the existing fleet of nuclear reactors, especially as many US reactors share the same fundamental design—and safety systems—as the affected Japanese reactors. The authors explore the proposition that a transition to increasingly passive safety features in new advanced reactor designs— supplementing, and in some cases superseding, the existing approach of depending on active “defense-in-depth” safety systems—could significantly reduce reactor safety risks. Such passive safety features are highly developed in new small modular reactor designs now under thorough study, designs that may also markedly improve the economic case for nuclear power, based on a factory-built reactor approach. These reactors offer the possibility that US-based manufacturers could regain a significant share of the international nuclear reactor market. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Opinion polls show that public support for nuclear power has declined since the Fukushima crisis began, not only in Japan but also in other nations around the world. People oppose nuclear power for a variety of reasons, but the predominant concern is the perception that it is a risky technology. Some communities that are closely associated with it even suffer from stigmatization. The nuclear industry has tried a variety of strategies to break down public resistance to nuclear power—including information campaigns, risk comparisons, and efforts to promote nuclear power as a solution to climate change. None of these strategies has worked well, mostly because the public lacks trust in the nuclear industry. Public resistance to nuclear power is likely to continue, making it difficult to site and build new reactors. This resistance may be a major obstacle to the rapid expansion of nuclear power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of Japan’s nuclear disaster, a major lesson can be learned related to the back end of the fuel cycle: Planning is necessary for the safe and secure management of spent nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. But the topic of storing waste continues to be subject to last-minute solutions, as the experiences of a number of countries besides Japan show. Countries with nuclear power programs need a medium-term strategy for spent fuel storage prior to the long-term plan for spent fuel or high-level waste disposal. Though difficult, the disposal of high-level nuclear waste is possible, and a clear strategy to develop a repository combines both technical and societal criteria in a phased approach. After Fukushima, it is now imperative to redefine what makes a successful nuclear power program—from cradle to grave. Nuclear waste management must be designed from the beginning; otherwise, the public in many countries will reject nuclear as an energy choice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2010, South Korea’s nuclear power reactors generated 31.4 percent of the country’s total electricity—by 2030 the government plans to have 19 more reactors online, increasing even more the country’s total nuclear generating capacity. But with this increased capacity comes increased spent nuclear fuel. The author writes that as the existing reactor-based storage pools fill up, spent fuel management is becoming a hot political issue. South Korea’s nuclear utility reports that over the next 10 years, the country will face a crisis in terms of on-site storage at all four of its nuclear power plant sites. As revealed in the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plants in March 2011, the vulnerability of spent-fuel storage pools is a matter of serious concern. The author explores ways in which South Korea can move forward. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author discusses maintenance of emergency preparedness towards avoidance of nuclear accidents such as Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011 at Japan by India. Topics discussed include description of safety operations for nuclear reactors, development of the organization International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for emergencies management, recommendations by Japanese government for scientific opinion and classification of an incident by safety standard operating procedures maintenance.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses several topics appearing elsewhere in the issue, including information on the U.S. Department of Energy's decision to develop two nuclear reactors, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and the nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan.

The author discusses aspects for maintenance of emergency preparedness towards avoidance of nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986 by the U.S. Topics discussed include organization of training programs for nuclear professionals, description of Fukushima nuclear accident at Japan on 2011, development of reforms by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for accidents prevention and illustration of improvisation development with progression of disaster for decision making.

Over a single April day in 1986, a little-known place called Chernobyl became infamous. Twenty-five years later, a similar fate befell Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture. The Fukushima disaster was better contained than Chernobyl, but if an emergency hits another nuclear power facility, it may well do so in an unanticipated way and present unforeseeable challenges. Are nations adequately prepared for an unpredictable “next one?” Here,Sonja Schmidof Austria,Augustin Simoof Cameroon, andManpreet Sethiof India assess improvements over the last 30 years in preparedness for a nuclear power disaster – and debate how preparedness should be further improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]