Making nuclear fail safe

A European Commission report aiming to prevent a Fukushima-type disaster estimates that up to €25bn needs to be spent on Europe’s reactors to make them safe, writes Barbara Lewis

EUROPE’S nuclear reactor fleet needs investment of €10bn to €25bn, a draft European Commission report said, following a safety review designed to ensure there is never a repeat of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.

The report is expected to be finalised today and debated by EU ministers later this month.

After that, the commission intends in 2013 to propose new laws, including on insurance and liability to “improve the situation of potential victims in the event of a nuclear accident”, the draft said.

Of the 134 EU nuclear reactors across 68 sites, 111 have more than 100,000 inhabitants living within a radius of 30km.

Safety regimes vary greatly and the amount that needs to be spent to improve them is estimated at anywhere between €30m and €200m per reactor unit — or a total of €10bn-25bn across the fleet.

The lesson of Fukushima was that two natural disasters could hit at the same time and knock out the electrical supply system of a plant, so it could not be cooled down.

Four reactors, located in two nations, were found to have less than one hour available to restore safety functions if electrical power is lost. By contrast, four countries operate additional safety systems fully independent from the normal safety measures and located in areas well-protected against external events.

A fifth nation is considering that option. The stress tests are a voluntary exercise to establish whether nuclear plants can withstand natural disasters, aircraft crashes and management failures, as well as whether adequate systems are in place to deal with power disruptions.

All 14 EU states that operate nuclear plants took part, however, as did EU member Lithuania, which is decommissioning its nuclear units. From outside the EU, Switzerland and Ukraine participated in the test.

The nuclear stress tests were meant to have been completed around the middle of the year, but member states were given extra time to assess more reactors.

Non-governmental organisations are among those who have criticised the stress tests for not going far enough and having no power to shut down a nuclear plant.

The draft report says the stress tests are not a one-off exercise and will be followed up. Existing legislation also needs to be enforced, it said.

The deadline for transposing the existing nuclear safety directive into national law was Jul 2011. The commission started infringement proceedings against 12 EU states that missed that deadline.

To date, two members have still not complied but the report did not specify which ones. The commission does not comment on leaked drafts. On Monday, the EU energy spokeswoman said the recommendations were being finalised and would not be very detailed.

In France, where nuclear provides 78% of the energy mix, the nuclear watchdog and operator EDF said they would not comment before seeing the official report.