Deterring and Compensating Oil Spill Catastrophes: The Need for Strict and Two-Tier Liability

The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill highlighted the glaring weakness in the current liability and regulatory regime for oil spills and for environmental catastrophes more broadly. This article proposes a new liability structure for deep sea oil drilling and for catastrophic risks generally. It delineates a two-tier system of liability. The first tier would impose strict liability up to the firm's financial resources plus insurance coverage. The second tier would be an annual tax equal to the expected costs in the coming year beyond this damages amount. A single firm will be identified as responsible for generating the risk. It would be required to demonstrate substantial ability to pay in the first tier before being permitted to engage in the risky activity. This structure provides for efficient deterrence for environmental catastrophes, since the responsible party is bearing in expectation the risks it is imposing. It also addresses the challenges posed by the fat-tailed distributions of catastrophic environmental risks and provides for more assured and adequate compensation of potential losses than current liability and regulatory arrangements.

Issues of the Seismic Safety of Nuclear Power Plants

Seismic safety of nuclear power plants became an eminent importance after the Great Tohoku earthquake on 11th of March, 2011 and subsequent disaster of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. Intensive works are in progress all over the world that include review of the site seismic hazard assessment, revision of the design bases, evaluation of vulnerability, and development of accident management capabilities of the plants. The lessons learned from the Fukushima-accident changed the paradigm of the design. Preparedness to the impossible, i.e. the development of means and procedures for ensuring the plant safety in extreme improbable situations became great importance. Main objective of the Chapter is to provide brief insight into the actual issues of seismic safety of nuclear power plants, provide interpretation of these issues, and show the possible solutions and scientific challenges. The “specific-to-nuclear” aspects of the characterisation of seismic hazard, including fault displacement are discussed. The actual design requirements, safety analysis procedures are briefly presented with main focus on the design extension situations. Operation aspects and problems for restart after earthquake are also discussed. The Chapter is more focusing on seismic safety of the inland plants, located on soil sites, in low-to-moderate (diffuse) seismicity regions

Computer trading and systemic risk: a nuclear perspective

Financial markets have evolved to become complex adaptive systems highly reliant on the communication speeds and processing power afforded by digital systems. Their failure could cause severe disruption to the provision of financial services and possibly the wider economy. In this study we consider whether a perspective from the nuclear industry can provide additional insights

Power Grid Recovery after Natural Hazard Impact

Natural hazards can affect the electricity supply and result in power outages which can trigger accidents, bring economic activity to a halt and hinder emergency response until electricity supply is restored to critical services. This study analyzes the impact of earthquakes, space weather and floods on the power grid recovery time. For this purpose, forensic analysis of the performance of the power grid during 16 earthquakes, 15 space weather events and 20 floods was carried out. The study concluded that different natural hazards affect the power grid in different ways. Earthquakes cause inertial damage to heavy equipment and brittle items, and ground failure and soil liquefaction can be devastating to electric infrastructure assets. Recovery time is driven by the balance of repairs and capabilities. Poor access to damaged facilities, due to landslides or traffic congestion, can also delay repairs. In this study, recovery time ranged from a few hours to months, but more frequently from 1 to 4 days. Floods are commonly associated with power outages. Erosion due to the floodwaters and landslides triggered by floods undermine the foundations of transmission towers. Serious, and often explosive, damage may occur when electrified equipment comes in contact with water, while moisture and dirt intrusion require time-consuming repairs of inundated equipment. Recovery time was driven by the number of needed repairs, and site access, as repairs cannot start until floodwaters have receded. In this study, power was back online from 24 hours up to 3 weeks after the flood. However, longer recovery times (up to 5 weeks) were associated with floods spawned by hurricanes and storms. Space weather affects transmission and generation equipment through geomagnetically induced currents (GICs). In contrast to earthquakes and floods, GICs have the potential to impact the entire transmission network. Delayed effects and the potential for system-wide impact were the main drivers of recovery time in this study. When damage is limited to tripping of protective devices, restoration time is less than 24 hours. However, repairs of damaged equipment may take up to several months. The study concludes with a number of recommendations related to policy, hazard mitigation and emergency management to reduce the risks of natural hazards to electric infrastructure and to improve crisis management in the aftermath of a natural disaster.JRC.E.2-Technology Innovation in Securit

Natural Hazards and Nuclear Power Plant Safety

The safety of nuclear power plants with respect of natural hazards can be ensured by adequate characterization of hazards and proven design solutions to cope with natural hazard effects. Design and severe accident management require characterization of very rare event. The events identified for the design basis and for the safety analysis are with annual probability 10−4–10−5 and 10−7, respectively. In this chapter, a brief insight into the actual issues of natural hazard safety of nuclear power plants and related scientific challenges is provided. The state of the art of ensuring safety of nuclear power plants with respect to natural hazard is briefly presented with focus on the preparedness to the accident sequences caused by rare natural phenomena. The safety relevance of different hazards and vulnerability of NPPs to different hazards are discussed. Specific attention is made to the non-predictable phenomena with sudden devastating effects like earthquakes and fault ruptures. Post-event conditions that affect the on-site and off-site accident management activities are also considered. The “specific-to-nuclear” aspects of the characterization of hazards are discussed. This is a great challenge for the sciences dealing with hazard characterization. The possibility for ensuring nuclear safety is demonstrated presenting cases when the nuclear power plants survived severe natural phenomena

One Year Later: Lessons from Recovery After the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake

The lessons from the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake are much the same as those the United States should have already learned from responding to its own large-scale disasters, including the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Gulf oil spill, and the events of 9/11. A team of experts assembled by The Heritage Foundation has identified four areas that are critical to responding to a catastrophe: recovery and resiliency of critical infrastructure, environmental remediation, compensation and disaster assistance, and population resiliency. Many of the team's recommendations in these areas involve government doing less, not more, and placing the responsibility for caring for communities back on the communities themselves and reserving for the federal government the responsibilities that only the national government can fulfill

Review of assessment, design, and mitigation of multiple hazards

Large parts of the world are subjected to one or more natural hazards, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, tropical storms (hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons), costal inundation and flooding. Virtually the entire world is at risk of man-made hazards. In recent decades, rapid population growth and economic development in hazard-prone areas have greatly increased the potential of multiple hazards to cause damage and destruction of buildings, bridges, power plants, and other infrastructure; thus posing a grave danger to the community and disruption of economic and societal activities. Although an individual hazard is significant in many parts of the United States (U.S.), in certain areas more than one hazard may pose a threat to the constructed environment. In such areas, structural design and construction practices should address multiple hazards in an integrated manner to achieve structural performance that is consistent with owner expectations and general societal objectives. The growing interest and importance of multiple-hazard engineering has been recognized recently. This has spurred the evolution of multiple-hazard risk-assessment frameworks and development of design approaches which have paved way for future research towards sustainable construction of new and improved structures and retrofitting of the existing structures. This report provides a review of literature and the current state of practice for assessment, design and mitigation of the impact of multiple hazards on structural infrastructure. It also presents an overview of future research needs related to multiple-hazard performance of constructed facilities

Deterring and Compensating Oil Spill Catastrophes: The Need for Strict and Two-Tier Liablility

The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill highlighted the glaring weakness in the current liability and regulatory regime for oil spills and for environmental catastrophes more broadly. This article proposes a new liability structure for deep sea oil drilling and for catastrophic risks generally. It delineates a two-tier system of liability. The first tier would impose strict liability up to the firm’s financial resources plus insurance coverage. The second tier would be an annual tax equal to the expected costs in the coming year beyond this damages amount. A single firm will be identified as responsible for generating the risk. It would be required to demonstrate substantial ability to pay in the first tier before being permitted to engage in the risky activity. This structure provides for efficient deterrence for environmental catastrophes, since the responsible party is bearing in expectation the risks it is imposing. It also addresses the challenges posed by the fat-tailed distributions of catastrophic environmental risks and provides for more assured and adequate compensation of potential losses than current liability and regulatory arrangements