Article

Emergency preparedness for long lasting releases – accident scenarios

¹ CIEMAT, Environment Department, Av. Complutense 40, 28040 Madrid, Spain
² BfS – Federal Office for Radiation Protection, Ingolstaedter Landstr. 1, 85764 Oberschleissheim, Germany
³ VUJE, Inc., Okružná 5, 918 64 Trnava, Slovakia
⁴ Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK), Finland, Säteilyturvakeskus, Finland

Abstract

The Fukushima-Daiichi accident has demonstrated the possibility of long-lasting releases of radionuclides from a nuclear power plant (NPP) over several weeks, which has led to the need to review if current procedures of external emergency planning are suitable for these situations. Under the framework of the “PREPARE” project one work package focused on “Review of the emergency preparedness in case of long-term emissions”. The aim is to test the current off-site nuclear emergency planning along Europe and to derive recommendations on how to improve it. In this context, a statistical study has been proposed by using potential long lasting release scenarios in combination with different weather conditions over a significant period of time (for instance one year) in some selected locations. This paper presents the results obtained in the development of accidental scenarios for a range of meteorological conditions representative for NPP sites in several European countries, i.e. Germany, Slovakia, Finland and Spain.