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Chernobyl at 40 years: Looking back at Nuclear News
Sunday, April 26, at 1:23 a.m. local time will mark 40 years since the most severe nuclear accident in history: the meltdown of Unit 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union.
In the ensuing four decades, countless books, documentaries, articles, and conference sessions have examined Chernobyl’s history and impact from various angles. There is a similar abundance of outlooks in the archives of Nuclear News, where hundreds of scientists, advocates, critics, and politicians have shared their thoughts on Chernobyl over the years. Today, we will take a look at some highlights from the pages of NN to see how the story of Chernobyl evolved over the decades.
Yoshikazu Tamauchi, Takashi Miyata, Kazumi Takebe, Yoshiaki Hayashi, Shingo Matsuoka, Kazuya Hayashi, Katsuya Kurosu
Nuclear Technology | Volume 181 | Number 2 | February 2013 | Pages 303-316
Technical Paper | Reactor Safety/Reprocessing | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-A15785
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In a reprocessing plant, the various and many accidents identified related to mechanical processes, chemical processes, and storage facilities have to be assessed to know the total risk of the plant. To assess the individual risks of so many potential accidents efficiently and effectively, we have developed a simplified quantitative method called quantitative safety assessment (QSA), based on our experience in probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) for the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant and with reference to the integrated safety analysis used in the United States for fuel cycle facilities. Our method not only includes such PRA features as quantifiability of the results and comparability of risk importance of the contributors to accident sequences but also offers the new features of simplified presentation and easy traceability. The designation of important safety structures, systems, components, and personnel activities is thus facilitated through the use of the results of this method. In this paper, the deployment of the QSA method is demonstrated using an example of a criticality accident in a plutonium partition process.