Nuclear Development ISBN 978-92-64-99122-4 Comparing Nuclear Accident Risks with Those from Other Energy Sources © OECD 2010 NEA No. 6861 NUCLEAR ENERGY AGENCY ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT The OECD is a unique forum where the governments of 32 democracies work together to address the economic, social and environmental challenges of globalisation. The OECD is also at the forefront of efforts to understand and to help governments respond to new developments and concerns, such as corporate governance, the information economy and the challenges of an ageing population. The Organisation provides a setting where governments can compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practice and work to co-ordinate domestic and international policies. The OECD member countries are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. The European Commission takes part in the work of the OECD. OECD Publishing disseminates widely the results of the Organisation’s statistics gathering and research on economic, social and environmental issues, as well as the conventions, guidelines and standards agreed by its members. This work is published on the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Organisation or of the governments of its member countries. NUCLEAR ENERGY AGENCY The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) was established on 1st February 1958 under the name of the OEEC European Nuclear Energy Agency. It received its present designation on 20th April 1972, when Japan became its first non-European full member. NEA membership today consists of 28 OECD member countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. The Commission of the European Communities also takes part in the work of the Agency. The mission of the NEA is: – to assist its member countries in maintaining and further developing, through international co-operation, the scientific, technological and legal bases required for a safe, environmentally friendly and economical use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, as well as – to provide authoritative assessments and to forge common understandings on key issues, as input to government decisions on nuclear energy policy and to broader OECD policy analyses in areas such as energy and sustainable development. Specific areas of competence of the NEA include safety and regulation of nuclear activities, radioactive waste management, radiological protection, nuclear science, economic and technical analyses of the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear law and liability, and public information. The NEA Data Bank provides nuclear data and computer program services for participating countries. In these and related tasks, the NEA works in close collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, with which it has a Co-operation Agreement, as well as with other international organisations in the nuclear field. Also available in French under the title: Évaluation de risques d’accidents nucléaires comparés à ceux d’autres filières énergétiques Corrigenda to OECD publications may be found on line at: www.oecd.org/publishing/corrigenda. © OECD 2010 You can copy, download or print OECD content for your own use, and you can include excerpts from OECD publications, databases and multimedia products in your own documents, presentations, blogs, websites and teaching materials, provided that suitable acknowledgment of OECD as source and copyright owner is given. All requests for public or commercial use and translation rights should be submitted to [email protected]. Requests for permission to photocopy portions of this material for public or commercial use shall be addressed directly to the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) at [email protected] or the Centre français d'exploitation du droit de copie (CFC) [email protected]. Cover photos courtesy of R. de Barse (Electrabel, Belgium) and L. Astruc (EDF, France). FOREWORD Following the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, nuclear power development slowed dramatically worldwide. Since that time, the safety of nuclear power has been a topic of frequent discussion, but is often not put in the context of the safety record of the whole nuclear industry or compared to the risks from other energy sources. This report looks at how the safety of nuclear power plants has improved over the years, as designs have progressed from Generation I to Generation III. It highlights the importance of the defence-in-depth concept and the increased focus on safety culture. Using probabilistic safety assessment, it compares core damage frequencies and large radioactive release frequencies to show how the designs of nuclear power plants have evolved to reduce the likelihood and consequence of severe accidents. It compares severe accident data (accidents with five or more fatalities) from a wide range of energy sources to illustrate that nuclear energy risks are often much lower than in other industries. The comparison examines both immediate fatalities and delayed (latent) fatalities, while recognising that the latter are more difficult to estimate and to verify. Finally, the report uses results from opinion surveys to consider public confidence in nuclear operations and how this is correlated with trust in legislation and regulatory systems. From these assessments, conclusions are drawn on the need to continuously enhance safety and to improve public knowledge of how nuclear power plants are operated and regulated. Vital to public confidence is the need for transparency and openness in the decisions and activities related to nuclear power plants. The report has been written mainly for a general audience and energy policy departments. 3 Acknowledgements This report was written by Stan Gordelier and revised by Ron Cameron, Head of the NEA Nuclear Development Division, under the supervision of the NEA Committee for Technical and Economic Studies on Nuclear Energy Development and the Fuel Cycle (NDC). 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD ............................................................................................. 3 KEY ISSUES FOR POLICY MAKERS ................................................. 7 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................... 9 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................... 13 2. NUCLEAR POWER PLANT SAFETY PHILOSOPHY ............ 15 2.1 IAEA Fundamental Nuclear Safety Principles ....................... 15 2.2 Defence in depth ..................................................................... 16 3. TRENDS IN PERFORMANCE INDICATORS .......................... 21 3.1 Unplanned automatic trip rate ................................................. 21 3.2 Worker exposure ..................................................................... 22 4. TRENDS IN PREDICTED SEVERE ACCIDENT RISK ........... 27 4.1 Probabilistic safety assessment ............................................... 27 4.2 Core damage and large release frequency reductions ............. 28 5. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SEVERE ACCIDENT RISKS IN THE ENERGY SECTOR ............................................ 33 5.1 Comparative analysis of major energy chains ........................ 34 5.2 Frequency-consequence curves .............................................. 36 5.3 Summary of severe accident risks in the energy sector .......... 39 6. PUBLIC CONFIDENCE IN NUCLEAR OPERATIONS .......... 41 7. CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................. 45 5 LIST OF FIGURES 1: The concept of defence in depth .......................................................... 18 2: Average number of global unplanned automatic reactor trips per 7 000 hours of operation ................................................................ 22 3: Average collective dose per reactor for operating reactors included in ISOE by reactor type (1992-2006) .................................................. 23 4: Reductions in average annual individual worker exposure in the French nuclear power generation industry ................................. 24 5: Evolution of average annual collective exposure per reactor by world region .................................................................................... 24 6: Reduction in design estimates of the large release frequency between reactor generations over the past five decades ..................................... 29 7: Core damage frequency for Dukovany NPP with VVER/440 V-213 .. 29 8: Evolution of core damage frequency and large release frequency for existing (Generation I and II) and for future reactor types (Generation III/III+) ............................................................................ 30 9: Number of fatalities per year for severe (≥ 5 fatalities) man-made, energy-related accidents .....................................................................