Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Bloggers Roundtable Part I Cut 1 Transcript
MR. YURMAN: Okay, our next question is about Fukushima. There are a
number of questions about the Agency's response to the Fukushima
tsunami and earthquake. The first question is what was the Agency's
decision process for making a recommendation for a 50-mile zone for
Americans to evacuate around Fukushima?
CHAIRMAN JACZKO: Well, we had a lot of internal discussions about
what we were seeing and what we were postulating would be happening
or could be happening in Japan. Based on that, we came to the -- we
actually did some analysis, took some best judgments about what we
think would be reliable inventories and releases from reactors given
the conditions we were anticipating and ran some simple codes that
gave us indication that there was the potential for releases out to
distances of about 50 miles or approximately in that range.
Given that information, we communicated with the Executive Branch and
gave them our sense that from a technical perspective in the United
States we were seeing similar things we would be looking at enhanced
evacuations. And from that then the Department of State issued a
travel advisory which specifically recommended American citizens
avoid that 50-mile area.
MR. YURMAN: A follow up question on Fukushima, in your testimony to
Congress in the weeks following the Fukushima event, you noted that
there was little or no water in the spent fuel pool at Fukushima
reactor number four and that as a result that plant was releasing
high levels of radiation. By June, it became apparent this was not
the case, that the spent fuel pool had remained covered the entire
time, did not catch on fire as had been reported in the media and
that there was little or no damage to the spent fuel pool number
four.
The question is what information did you rely on in March to make the
assertion that the pool was uncovered and what lessons learned can
you point to from this change in circumstances looking forward to
future situations where you might be called to make similar analyses?
CHAIRMAN JACZKO: Well, I think in the situation we -- and I provided
what was the best -- our best understanding of the situation.
Thankfully, the pool appeared to be in a different condition than we
believed at that time. But I would say that this was a small piece
of what we were looking at at the time and the indications of high
radiation levels were accurate. That was, in many ways, I think, the
issue that we were really more concerned with. And I think at that
time one of the things that I testified to was the fact that you had
such high radiation levels at the site meant that you were going to
have challenges doing remediation and other mitigation measures for
the plant. That, if anything, was really the reason we had concerns
about the pool was to what extent that was contributing, if that fuel
was uncovered, it would have been contributing significantly to the
radiation field which we knew was very, very high to begin with.
In terms of in the future, I think the biggest lesson we have from
this is the need to ensure that we have reliable instrumentation from
the pools. Clearly, that wasn't the case for a variety of different
reasons. The Task Force that we established to look at Fukushima
made a recommendation in that area, that it was important to make
sure we had good instrumentation that could continue to provide
reliable information even after a significant event like the
earthquake and the tsunami. But in terms of providing information, I
was in a congressional hearing, we're always going to err on the side
of providing the information that we have and what we know. And if
there are things that are inaccurate over time, it's not surprising
that that will happen in a situation like that. And I think for
everybody's sake it was a good thing in the end that our assessment
of the pool turned out to be inaccurate.
MR. YURMAN: Let's stay with Fukushima for a minute. The NRC has
posted a Fukushima list of actions, had a staff report that came out
in July. The question is how fast will the Agency move on its
recommendations? And do you see consensus forming around which
actions will take place first?
CHAIRMAN JACZKO: Yes, I think the Agency is moving very
expeditiously on these recommendations. We have had the staff
analyze, some more staff analyze the Task Force report and come up
with some sense of timing and prioritization for the recommendation.
Part of that was an assessment of those actions that could be done,
that could really be started right away. And the staff came up with
a list of things that they started right away. Actually, just
yesterday, they gave us another set of recommendations and how to
prioritize those. And they added a couple more to the ones that
could be started right away.
So I think in general, the Commission is coming around to, I think,
what will hopefully be a general consensus position about how to move
forward. But I would note that this is one piece of what needs to be
done. The biggest issue ultimately is the plants themselves and
getting the modifications done. And very early on I suggested that
we should shoot for five years to get all of that work completed.
And the industry indicated, I think, similarly that they thought five
years was a good time in which to complete all that action. So I
think we're moving forward expeditiously and look forward to a
meeting we'll have next week to talk about this prioritization of all
these recommendations and see what we think.