Brussels, 11/03/2013 (Agence Europe) - Two years after the accident in Fukushima, Japan, the nuclear member states of the EU have decided to reassess the level of nuclear safety in all nuclear power plants in the EU. The Commission will soon be proposing review of the European legal arsenal.
Two years after the nuclear accident that took place at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant following an earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011, Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger seeks to be reassuring about the state of nuclear safety in Europe, where there are 145 reactors in 64 power plants. In practice, in several member states, work on improvements in accordance with the recommendations of stress tests has already started, he states in a press release published on 8 March. At the legal level, Oettinger wants to strengthen the European legislative framework on safety, promising a proposal in several months' time. Safety is not divisible, he stressed.
The 145 nuclear reactors in the EU, which are either running or being decommissioned, have successfully passed the stress test exercise begun after the Fukushima accident. Stress tests allowed the resistance of reactors in the European Union to be tested - as well as those in neighbouring countries like Switzerland and Ukraine - when faced with extreme natural events (earthquakes, floods, etc.) and various technical failings that would entail the loss of the plants' normal safety functions, in the light of the accident in Japan. Also evaluated was the capacity of power plants to withstand serious accidents. After 18 months of work, the final recommendations made by the Commission and the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) concluded that there were no plants that needed to have their activity halted. However, improvements must be made almost everywhere. The cost of compliance is assessed at between €30 to 200 million per reactor.
Tests have highlighted several areas in which best practices and the highest international standards recommended by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were not fully applied by all member states. Improvements should be made not only for coming into compliance with recent norms for calculating seismic risk but also for complying with recent norms for calculating flood risk. Shortcomings were also found relating to the insufficiency of the European plants with regard to the protection of emergency equipment intended for emergency intervention in the event of serious accident. Seismic instruments on site to measure and give the alarm in the event of seismic risks were lacking or had to be improved in 121 reactors. Finally, should the main control room become inaccessible due to accident, an emergency control room must be provided but this is lacking in 24 reactors. (See EUROPE 10703).
Since then, improvement work has started in several member states, the European commissioner said in a press release. It is expected that the power plants will comply with recommendations - albeit not binding - by 2014, when the Commission will draw up a new report for June 2014, in partnership with ENSREG. Reassessment of the level of nuclear safety follows objectives set in national plans for the 14 EU member states that use nuclear power, plus Switzerland.
In addition to the programme for ensuring compliancy, the European Commission is to propose, by the spring, revision of the European legal framework on nuclear safety, which is governed by a 2009 directive. The changes proposed will mainly relate to safety requirements, the role and the prerogatives of the national safety authorities, transparency and follow up. Commissioner Oettinger also wants to table, in 2013, proposals on insurance and liability in the nuclear field, and on maximum admissible levels of radioactive contamination in foodstuffs. (EH/transl.jl)