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U.S. Atomic Safety and Licensing Board rejects request to reopen licence renewal hearing for Pilgrim plant on basis of Lessons Learned from Fukushima November 28, 2011 The Board rejected the arguments of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and their expert, Dr. Gordon Thompson on the relevance of Fukushima and in particular, Dr. Thompson’s methodology on accident analysis which used “direct experience.” This approach computed core damage frequency for a particular plant by taking the historical number of all core damage events that have occurred at all commercial nuclear plants regardless of plant design and site conditions and dividing that number by the total number of years of operation of all commercial nuclear plants worldwide. The risks identified through this methodology were found to be greater than those advanced by Entergy, the plant operator, or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Entergy argued that Dr. Thompson’s methodology had never been used before to calculate core damage frequency for Probablistic Risk Assessment applications and that he had provided no scientific report or peer reviewed scientific journal article or other document to support his assertions. The Board, in rejecting Dr. Thompson and the State’s arguments, concluded that there was no demonstration that the concerns raised took into account the specific design and site characteristics of the Pilgrim plant. Case |
