19 Jun (NucNet): Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) today approved safety guidelines for nuclear power plants that reflect the lessons learned from the March 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi accident, the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (JAIF) has confirmed.
The regulators unanimously approved the final draft of the guidelines. The work to revise them started in October 2012.
The new guidelines cover three main areas: design basis safety standards, severe accident measures and safety standards for earthquakes and tsunamis.
Operators of nuclear plants will be obliged to take concrete steps to mitigate against the possibility of serious accidents. Until now, such action was voluntary, JAIF said.
They will also be required to draw up emergency scenarios for bigger earthquakes and tsunamis.
NRA chairman Shunichi Tanaka said the guidelines are up to international standards, but he said their “true value” will be tested when they are implemented. He also said there is a need for the NRA to establish a system of revising the guidelines further.
The new guidelines will come into effect on 8 July 2013, after which time the NRA will start accepting applications from power companies for reactor restarts.
Finalising the guidelines has created a framework for safety checks to take place, but it could take months for the first restarts to be approved, JAIF said. Screening of each application is likely to take six months.
A draft copy of the new guidelines posted on the NRA website says various investigation reports and studies on Fukushima-Daiichi underlined “certain vulnerability and failures” in Japan’s existing nuclear safety systems, procedures and standards, including a lack of the back-fit systems that applies revised standards to existing nuclear reactors.
The draft says examples of this include an absence of effective severe accident management measures, vulnerability in countermeasures against the risk of earthquakes and tsunamis, and insufficient preparations against common cause failures.
The NRA also said Japan lagged behind internationally accepted safety principles and guidelines, a situation which needed “redress and readjustment” in crafting any new safety standards.
In March 2013, Japan’s prime minister told parliament that idled nuclear reactors will be restarted if it is proven safe to do so.
Shinzo Abe said he would work with the NRA to establish a new safety culture to strengthen the safety of the country’s nuclear plants in the wake of Fukushima-Daiichi.
Only two of Japan’s 50 commercial reactors, Ohi-3 and Ohi-4, have restarted since the Fukushima-Daiichi accident.
A draft copy of the guidelines is online:
www.nsr.go.jp/english/data/new_safety_standards.pdf
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