A Swiss-led European Union (EU) initiative to amend and strengthen international reactor safety standards in a post-Fukushima world was blunted by the United States delegation to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Convention on Nuclear Safety. The US is being recognized as the leading opponent to upgrading international nuclear safety standards to prevent the next nuclear meltdown.
In face of US opposition and to a lesser degree Russian objections to reactor safety upgrades, the EU coalition is retreating from filing a formal amendment for a vote at the February 2015 convention. The coalition will instead submit an unratified statement that does not press for any new safety obligations for global reactor operators.
The US delegation insisted that it did not oppose the initiative because of increasing costs and market losses to the nuclear industry, asserting that current upgrades are adequate.
Senators Edward J. Markey (Dem/MA) and Barbara Boxer (Dem/CA) however had expressed their grave concern in a December 1, 2014 letter to the former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Allison Macfarlane exposing the agency’s role in undermining the proposed international reactor safety upgrades. One of Macfarlane’s last communications before permanently resigning her post at the end of 2014 declared, “Media reports that the United States opposes changes to the Convention because of cost issues related to safety upgrades are not correct.”
Contrary to Macfarlane’s parting claim, the Commission had already shown its hand by rejecting one such significant safety upgrade that was strongly recommended by the agency’s own Japan Lessons Learned Task Force. The lesson, now unlearned by the Commission, would have ordered all U.S. operators of Fukushima-style reactors (GE Mark I and Mark II boiling water reactors) to install high capacity external radiation filters for hardened vents on the vulnerable containment systems. Senior staff had concluded that installing external filters was “a cost-benefited substantial safety enhancement” to more reliably manage the next severe nuclear accident by venting the extreme heat, high pressure, explosive gases while still significantly reducing the consequences by capturing large amounts of radioactivity. However, the UBS international energy investment bank had earlier predicted that the Commission would likely vote down its senior managers’ recommendation because of the “added stress this places on the incumbent’s portfolio” and “the fragile state of affairs” of their licensees' financial and economic condition.
This same safety upgrade is widely installed on Europe's reactors and a new reactor restart requirement of the Nuclear Regulation Authority for a still “zero nuclear” Japan. Nearly one-third of the remaining 99 reactor units in the US fleet are these dangerous Fukushima-style reactors.