WANO reports on post-Fukushima improvements

Wednesday, 27 June 2018

London-headquartered WANO said yesterday that many of the recommended improvements were "complex and challenging, and required a significant investment of time and resources to roll out and complete".

The projects focused on: emergency preparedness; emergency support plan; severe accident management; early event notification; onsite fuel storage; design safety fundamentals; peer review frequency; peer review equivalency; corporate peer reviews; WANO assessment; transparency and visibility; and WANO internal assessment.

Peter Prozesky, CEO at WANO, said completion of the projects was "testimony to the expertise, hard work and dedication" of the organisation, adding they are now a "core part" of business activities.

He said: "The lessons learned from Fukushima have resulted in our members collectively implementing a total of approximately 6000 safety enhancement activities worldwide. Overall the margin of nuclear safety has been improved from the levels experienced before Fukushima."

WANO's nuclear leadership programmes, he added, are "helping to bring members together in an environment where the mid-senior tier of management - including roles such as operations managers, shift managers and maintenance managers - will gain new insights, and hone their leadership skills through interaction with other senior leaders. We are excited to work with the industry in this area".

One of the projects involved WANO's development of an emergency support plan (ESP) to better provide its members with assistance if an emergency occurs.

The plan integrates WANO's actions with those of other industry organisations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and World Nuclear Association.

"In the event of an emergency, the ESP will be capable of providing accurate event information to its members as well as coordinating requests for technical expertise and support to the worldwide membership," WANO said. Each of the four WANO regional centres now has an on-call emergency response capability that is exercised in conjunction with its member plants, it added.