US model risk assesment for Japanese nuclear plants

 November 5,  2013

Japan to study nuclear accident risk system in US

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20131105_25.html

Japanese and US officials have agreed to explore ways to introduce a system in Japan for assessing the risk of accidents at nuclear power plants. Such a system is already in place in the United States.

Japan's Deputy Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama and US Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman met in Washington on Monday.

They were attending the 2nd meeting of a commission to discuss nuclear power safety. The commission was formed by Japan and the US last year following the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

Japanese officials proposed that the 2 countries work together to set up a US-model risk assessment system in Japan that uses metrics to compute the probabilities of a nuclear plant accident.
The 2 sides will work to convene experts to study the system's requirements and its method of implementation in Japan.

The US assessment method quantifies factors such as natural disasters, unexpected equipment malfunctions and human error to determine which areas of a nuclear power plant are at high risk.

The technique is said to identify individual weaknesses at each Japanese plant that is analyzed.

Officials of the 2 countries also agreed to cooperate to deal with the leakage of highly contaminated water at the Fukushima plant.

Nov. 5, 2013 - Updated 07:23 UTC