Investigation of Ageing Effects Using the Probabilistic Safety Assessments - Proceedings of the European Workshop on Probabilistic Safety Assessment

JRC – IE Petten organized with the support of the Kernkraftwerk Gösgen-Däniken, Switzerland, an EC Workshop on Investigation of Ageing Effects using the Probabilistic Safety Assessments. The goal of the workshop was to present and discuss the developed methods and approaches and the results obtained for application of reliability and PSA techniques on evaluation and management of NPP ageing. For the units which have approached the end of initial design lifetime and especially for those which are planning to extend the lifetime, it has to be demonstrated that the plant safety level will remain adequate until the end of operation, and to do that, is necessary to evaluate the effects of ageing phenomena on the plant performance and safety. The workshop contained a general session, dedicated to activities of different organizations in PSA field, and a technical session, focused on the results obtained in application of reliability and PSA techniques on evaluation and management of NPP ageing. Based on the presentations and participants experience, discussions about topics considered interested to be developed further were organized. The arising conclusions are presented.JRC.F.5-Nuclear Reactor Safety Assessmen

Systems Patholopgy of Social Organizations: Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe 3.11

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that struck northeast Japan on March 11, 2011, were unavoidable natural disasters, but we consider the subsequent breakdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plants to be a catastrophe created by avoidable human errors – an organizational disaster. We review the mistakes that have led up to the present nuclear crisis, and recommend several steps to avoid similar crises in the future. These include issues of (i) determining whether the Fukushima catastrophe was an accident or a man-made disaster? (ii) irrational decision-making due to the pathology of Japanese organizations, (iii) the business ethics of power companies running 40+ years old ageing nuclear reactors, (iv) tired management and system fatigue that administrated the hidden trouble of old reactors as social responsibility, (v) dynamics of systems pathology caused by non-rational governance or multisystem errors of disclosure for stricken area and overseas, (vi) un-homeostasis means the pathology or apoptosis that is ‘Fukushima Formula’ applying to the nuclear reactor in the world