U.S. Nuclear Power after Fukushima

The Union of Concerned Scientists asserts that U.S. nuclear plants are vulnerable to severe accidents and terrorist attacks, citing the Fukushima crisis as a warning. The report identifies failures in NRC enforcement and industry priorities, specifically regarding spent fuel storage and fire protection. It proposes eight key reforms, including extending regulations to cover severe accidents, expanding emergency planning zones beyond 10 miles, and increasing the monetary value assigned to human life in cost-benefit analyses to mandate safer reactor designs.

• The NRC's current regulatory framework focuses on "design-basis" accidents and does not require reactor owners to plan for or cope with severe accidents, such as the one at Fukushima Daiichi. The agency does not evaluate or test the voluntary severe accident management guidelines developed by reactor owners.
• U.S. emergency planning for nuclear accidents is limited to a 10-mile radius, which is described as arbitrary. Evidence from the Fukushima accident showed high contamination levels well beyond this distance, leading the U.S. government to advise evacuations up to 50 miles away.
• Spent nuclear fuel is more vulnerable in storage pools than in the reactor core or dry casks. Despite the risks, reactor owners have filled pools to maximum capacity to avoid the costs of dry casks, even though fuel can be moved to casks five years after removal from the reactor.
• There is a significant failure in the enforcement of fire protection regulations. Despite regulations issued in 1980 and 2004 following a 1975 fire at the Browns Ferry plant in Alabama, more than three dozen reactors remain non-compliant.
• The NRC's assumptions regarding terrorist capabilities are considered unrealistically modest and fail to account for weapons like rocket-propelled grenades. Security forces often fail to repel these modest threats even when given advance notice of mock attacks.
• Current NRC policy does not require new reactor designs to be safer than existing ones, only to provide the same level of protection. This allows cheaper designs to be preferred over safer ones, such as the Westinghouse AP1000 being more attractive than the Areva EPR.
• The NRC uses a dollar value for human life in cost-benefit analyses that is only one-half to one-third of the value used by other government agencies, which leads to the rejection of safety features as being too expensive.

APA

Union of Concerned Scientists (2011). U.S. Nuclear Power after Fukushima. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/ucs-fs-nuclear-safety-recs.pdf

Chicago

Union of Concerned Scientists. U.S. Nuclear Power after Fukushima. 2011. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/ucs-fs-nuclear-safety-recs.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Union of Concerned Scientists |title=U.S. Nuclear Power after Fukushima |date=July 2011 |url=https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/ucs-fs-nuclear-safety-recs.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{unionofconcernedscientists2011nuclear, author = {{Union of Concerned Scientists}}, title = {{U.S. Nuclear Power after Fukushima}}, institution = {Union of Concerned Scientists}, year = {2011}, month = jul, url = {https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/ucs-fs-nuclear-safety-recs.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }