Society News Archive
The Health Physics Society (HPS) is soliciting members to nominate for a new National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study entitled “Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety and Security of U.S. Nuclear Plants.” This 24-month study, which was requested by the U.S. Congress and is being sponsored by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), is intended to build on the 2004 NAS study entitled “Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage” and efforts to learn from the Fukushima accident that are being carried out by the NRC, industry, and others. This NAS study will examine:
- Causes of the Fukushima nuclear accident, particularly with respect to the performance of safety systems and operator response following the earthquake and tsunami.
- Re-evaluation of the conclusions from previous NAS studies on safety and security of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste storage, particularly with respect to the safety and security of current storage arrangements and alternative arrangements in which the amount of commercial spent fuel stored in pools is reduced.
- Lessons that can be learned from the accident to improve commercial nuclear plant safety and security systems and operations.
- Lessons that can be learned from the accident to improve commercial nuclear plant safety and security regulations, including processes for identifying and applying design basis events for accidents and terrorist attacks to existing nuclear plants.
A listserv has been established to provide information about this study. If you would like to be added to this listserv please send your name and email address to [email protected] and include the phrase “Subscribe to Fukushima listserv” in the subject line.
This study will be carried out using the NAS’ processes for conducting consensus studies (see here for Study Process). Efforts are now underway to identify experts to serve on the study committee. NAS welcomes nominations of scientists and engineers with the following expertise:
- Decision analysis
- Emergency planning
- Geophysics
- Health physics
- Human factors & reliability
- Law and regulation
- Materials sciences (especially metal behavior at high temperature)
- Mechanical engineering
- Nuclear chemistry/radiochemistry
- Nuclear engineering (especially nuclear fuel characteristics and performance, heat transfer/thermal hydraulics, nuclear plant instrumentation, nuclear plant operations)
- Nuclear plant organization and management (including understanding of U.S. and Japanese safety cultures)
- Risk analysis (especially probabilistic risk assessment)
- Safety systems and operations
- Security systems and operations
- Structural engineering
- Terrorist capabilities and strategies
Please send your CV and a short statement of your area of expertise to be considered for nomination by the HPS to Kathryn Pryor at [email protected] by 20 April 2012.