Insights into the Societal Risk of Nuclear Power Plant Accidents

Abstract

The elements of societal risk from a nuclear power plant accident are clearly illustrated by the Fukushima accident: land contamination, long-term relocation of large numbers of people, loss of productive farm area, loss of industrial production, and significant loss of electric capacity. NUREG-1150 and other studies have provided compelling evidence that the individual health risk of nuclear power plant accidents is effectively negligible relative to other comparable risks, even for people living in close proximity to a plant. The objective of this study is to compare the societal risk of nuclear power plant accidents to that of other events to which the public is exposed. We have characterized the monetized societal risk in the United States from major societally disruptive events, such as hurricanes, in the form of a complementary cumulative distribution function. These risks are compared with nuclear power plant risks, based on NUREG-1150 analyses and new MACCS code calculations to account for differences in source terms determined in the more recent SOARCA study. A candidate quantitative societal objective is discussed for potential adoption by the NRC. The results are also interpreted with regard to the acceptability of nuclear power as a major source of future energy supply.

Public Response to a Near‐Miss Nuclear Accident Scenario Varying in Causal Attributions and Outcome Uncertainty

“…In particular, studies have found past major nuclear accidents (e.g., Chernobyl, Fukushima) negatively impacted perceived risk, behavioral intentions, public attitudes, and policies related to nuclear power. Even in the case of no direct casualties or long‐term disease or deaths from radiation exposure (e.g., the Three Mile Island accident), the occurrence of a nuclear accident would likely impact society and the economy substantially due to social amplification of risk . For instance, greater public opposition to nuclear power after an accident could cause stricter regulations and reduce ongoing and planned operation of nuclear reactors.…”

“…Even in the case of no direct casualties or long-term disease or deaths from radiation exposure (e.g., the Three Mile Island accident), the occurrence of a nuclear accident would likely impact society and the economy substantially due to social amplification of risk. (15,16) For instance, greater public opposition to nuclear power after an accident could cause stricter regulations and reduce ongoing and planned operation of nuclear reactors.…”

Trust and consequences: Role of community science, perceptions, values, and environmental justice in risk communication

“…Listening often leads to the recognition that the risk from a particular stressor (e.g., chemical or radionuclides exposures) being discussed may be from chronic exposure, but the audience may be worried about catastrophic events that result in massive exposures or the effect of the nuclear plant on housing values, or educational or job opportunities. For example, the worry of people living around nuclear power plants (or DOE facilities) cannot be dealt with simply by discussing the exposure rates from ongoing operations (typically negligible), but also from the risk of a catastrophic event, such as Fukushima (Denning & Mubayi, 2017; Kusumi et al., 2017) or Chernobyl. The consequences for residents near such an “accident” are long‐term displacement of people and communities, loss of productive farms, and loss of community culture, among others.…”

Risk-Informed ATF and FLEX Analysis for an Enhanced Resilient BWR Under Design-Basis and Beyond-Design-Basis Accidents

“…For public risk and occupational risk, health impacts (mortality and morbidity) on public and plant workers are monetized as dollars per person-rem of collective dose (U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2015). For public risk, societal impact (land contamination, long-term relocation, loss of productive farm area, loss of industrial production, and loss of electric capacity) is monetized as dollars per large early release (LER) accident (Denning & Mubayi, 2017). These results, using monetary value as a common scale, are referred as "calculated costs" or "calculated benefits" in this section and converted to "perceived costs" and "perceived benefits" based on CPT (Tversky & Kahneman, 1992).…”

“…This case study selects the average population dose within 50-mile radius, which is 1.99 × 10 5 person rem, as the sum of 𝑁 𝐷,𝑃 and 𝑁 𝐷,𝑂 , considering that a 50-mile zone around a plant is the NRC-defined ingestion-pathway emergency-planning zone and is used by NRC in regulatory action CBAs (U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2017a). The sum of ∆𝑃𝑅 𝐹𝐿𝐸𝑋 and ∆𝑂𝑅 𝐹𝐿𝐸𝑋 is then calculated as 1.19E+02 person-rem per reactor year and monetized using the following equation (U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2017a):Regarding parameter 𝐶𝐹 𝑆 ,(Denning & Mubayi, 2017) provided an estimate of $38 billion (June 2012 dollars) per accident. This case study adopts this estimate and inflates it to $42.74 billion (March 2020 dollars) per accident.…”