Friday’s earthquake near British Columbia gave voice to rumblings from a science advisory report that urges the nuclear industry to focus more on worst case scenarios.
A U.S. National Academy of Sciences report says Japan's Fukushima nuclear accident offers a key lesson to the nation's nuclear industry: Focus more on the highly unlikely worst case scenarios, like earthquakes, floods and tsunamis.
We need to do a soul searching when it comes to the assumptions of how to deal with worst case events, says University of Southern California engineering professor Najmedin Meshkati, the panel's technical adviser.
“Engineers should think about something that could happen once every, perhaps 1,000 years,” says Meshkati. “You have to totally change your mode of thinking because complacency and hubris is the worst enemy to nuclear safety,”
A second earthquake in as many months was recorded off the B.C. coast last week, reaching a magnitude of 5.9 on the Richter scale. That was preceded on June 4 by a 5.7 magnitude quake in the same area.
According to the Nuclear Insurance Association of Canada, the current limit that large nuclear power operators must carry in this country is $75 million – which is significantly lower than the $375 million required in the United States.
The report cites the 2011 Japanese Fukushima nuclear accident, caused by an earthquake and tsunami, stating that it should not have been a surprise. Another Japanese nuclear power plant also hit by the tsunami was closer to the quake's fault. But the Onagawa plant wasn't damaged because quakes and flooding were considered when it was built. (continued.)
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Onagawa had crucial backup electricity available for when the main power went down, as opposed to Fukushima which had emergency generators in a basement that flooded. Onagawa's operators had "a different mindset" than the executives who ran Fukushima, Meshkati said.
The other two nuclear accidents - at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island and Ukraine's Chornobyl- were caused by multiple system failures.
