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This paper is reviewing the causes and risks of initiating a fire in the spent fuel pool of Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) and the current capabilities to extinguish or prevent spent fuel fires from occurring to propose new applications supporting preventing or mitigating spent fuel fires to ensure the safety of the people, assets, and environment. This paper addresses many lessons from the Fukushima Daiichi accident and other research experiments done on spent fuel pools. Furthermore, risk assessments such as HAZOP and FTA were developed to come up with recommendations and new preventive measures that can be implemented in BNNP and other nuclear power plants around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study on regulatory concepts of proven in NPP technology for the case of Indonesia has been carried out. Indonesia as an embarking country has issued several regulations related to the proven of NPP technology. According to the IAEA international standard, good regulations and guidelines among others should be adequate and comprehensive. It also states that the purpose of regulations and guidelines is to ensure the stability and consistency of regulatory oversight and to confirm impartiality in regulatory decision making. They must be adequate in establishing principles, requirements and criteria to be used for assessing compliance, and are consistent and comprehensive. Thus, this paper will discuss whether the concept of proven in NPP technology of Indonesian regulations are adequate and comprehensive. This is a very important question to be asked, because the current regulations on this topic have never been executed in a real NPP project and that the function of regulation is to ensure that the design and technology for the upcoming NPP could provide safety assurance in an acceptable level, and for sure could prevent an event similar to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident from happen. The study was descriptive, analytic and qualitative in nature, and conducted by reviewing the applicability of internationally acceptable references such as international agreements that Indonesia is the contracting party and some relevant international safety requirement standards, as well as regulations and guidelines from countries that has built NPP technology, and then comparing them with the existing regulations in Indonesia. This paper concludes that basically regulations in Indonesia related to the proven of NPP technology are in line with the international agreements and standards. Furthermore, there is still a wide room for improvement in these regulations. Among others, by introducing the concept of proven design and construction, proven codes and standards, and proven procedures, and especially regarding the acceptance criteria for all types of these proven attributes. The results of this study, and relevant regulations and guidelines from countries that have built NPP technology, may be used as a reference for developing a road map to enhance national regulations and the implementing guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nuclear power is an undisputedly clean source of energy. However, the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident serves as a reality check to most developed countries that have nuclear power plants to rethink their power strategy due to the huge environmental impact it has if accidents happen. With this scenario, coal will still be relevant in power industry for many years to come. However, getting good quality coal economically has become a challenge. Coal blending practice will help to achieve the objective of getting enough coal for the boiler with correct quality. Optimizing the coal combustion in power plant will improve its efficiency and lead to reduction of greenhouse gases in the flue gas. One of the main objective in the coal combustion research is to develop techniques that help power plant operators utilizes coal cleanly and efficiently. Coal combustion also associated with green house emission or pollutants. CO, CO2, NOx and SO2 are major gases emitted by coal combustion. The operators need to ensure the desired power output is achieved and at the same time, maintaining the strict emission standard at all time. This paper will discuss the pulverized coal combustion and process involved. Coal blending practice among the power plant also will be discussed and reviewed. Further discussion on coal combustion emission and optimization techniques will also be discussed. It can be said that coal blending practice and emission control techniques are essential in ensuring sustainable coal plant operation for years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper on the accident at nuclear plant Fukushima Daiichi in Japan and how such accidents could be prevented with the help of safety enhancement is presented. It discusses the status of nuclear regulation in Japan, the outline of the accident and the safety requirements. It examines the pacific ocean earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011 and tsunami that occurred aftermath causing loss of power at the nuclear plant.

In the last ten years, the nuclear activities, as well as the major nuclear events (see Fukushima accident) had an increasing impact on the environment, merely by contamination with radioactive materials. The most conferment way to quickly identify the presence of some radioactive elements in the environment, is to measure the dose-equivalent rate H. In this situation, information concerning the values of H due only to the natural radiation background must exist. Usually, the values of H due to the natural radiation background, are very low ( ~10-9 - 10-8 Sv/h). A correct measurement of H in this range involve a performing calibration of the measuring instruments in the measuring range corresponding to the natural radiation background lead to important problems due to the presence of the natural background itself the best way to overlap this difficulty is to set up the calibration stand in an area with very low natural radiation background. In Romania, we identified an area with such special conditions at 200 m dept, in a salt mine. This paper deals with the necessary requirements for such a calibration facility, as well as with the calibration stand itself. The paper includes also, a description of the calibration stand (and images) as well as the radiological and metrological parameters. This calibration facilities for environment dosimetry is one of the few laboratories in this field in Europe [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term "good regulatory practice" has seen growing frequency of usage worldwide, especially since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear incident. However, the term appears quite ambiguous as it may mean differently to different people. This leads us to the first important question: what does "good regulatory practice" actually mean? When used in conjunction with the Fukushima incident, do we imply that there is an absence of "good regulatory practice" in the Japanese' Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency (NISA)? This is quite troubling. It is clear that the term should be defined formally so that our understanding of "good regulatory practice" can be standardized. There is still another important question beyond agreeing on what "good regulatory practice" is: is "good regulatory practice" specific to a region, or is it global? And is it applicable only to nuclear regulators, or to all types of regulators per se? This paper aims to deliberate on the above mentioned questions. Specifically, we hope to discuss the "good regulatory practice" for atomic energy activities in order to protect the people and the environment from radiation risk of such activities. By understanding what "good regulatory practice" truly means, a newcomer country such as Malaysia can quickly learn and adopt these practices so as to assure a competent national nuclear regulatory authority who will be responsible in ensuring the safety, security and safeguards of peaceful atomic energy activities in the country including nuclear liability. In understanding this concept, a holistic approach will be taken by looking into example of advanced and newcomer countries of various nuclear regulatory authorities all around the world. Then the paper will focus on the challenges that the current nuclear regulatory authority in Malaysia which is Atomic Energy Licensing Board has, its challenges to follow the concept of "good regulatory practice" and its ways to overcome it. This study explore the initiatives could be considered by nuclear regulatory authority and the necessary criteria of an "ideal" how nuclear regulatory authority should implement the "good regulatory practice" approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Joichi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab, suggests that the way ahead in education is to support endeavors where learning processes and peer collaborations are valued above end products and exam scores. The divisions and silo-effect of traditional disciplines need to be dismantled and discouraged. Ito calls this antidisciplinary. This paper is an account of an emerging awareness of an antidisciplinary space as undergraduate students designed, built, programmed and created a 3D virtual simulation, termed a Synthetic Learning Environment, viewable in the Oculus Rift Head Mounted Display for elementary understanding of a nuclear power plant accident scenario. The research project did not set out to be antidisciplinary. There was no conscious effort to identify a space and devise ways of working in that space. The antidisciplinary space emerged through pedagogic partnerships and mutually informative collaborations. The emerging antidisciplinary space, with its impact on pedagogical transformation and collaborative learning, is utilized to study the iterative development of the Synthetic Learning Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) further confirms that human activity is the main cause of global warming. While there is a huge incentive to replace electricity generation based on fossil fuel burning, the replacement is slow and doesn't provide promised results. Opponents of nuclear energy promote problems like uranium scarcity, or the storage of radioactive waste material. New concepts of nuclear reactors could solve both problems, especially the Gas-cooled Fast Reactor (GFR), which is the main objective of the ALLEGRO Project. The Gas-cooled reactor requires specific safety systems, ideal for its construction and used primary circuit coolant. The usage of a natural circulation system seems to be one of the best options for the safety cooling of GFR. However, after the Fukushima accident, concerns arose about the degree of fluid flow control in such a system. This paper presents a mathematical model used for the calculation of the steady state of a natural circulation system, without the use of complex and time-consuming CFD simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The absence of online radiation monitoring systems has been observed in the case of Fukushima nuclear accident. As the tsunami destroyed 23 of the 24 status monitoring points, almost no relevant radiation dose measurements data were available. A rapid deployment of a mobile radiological unit that can quickly determine the activity and direction of the radioactive cloud spread on the ground or in the air can prevent unnecessary deaths and related financial losses. Although the design of the current generation of NPPs incorporates features that minimize the risk of large radioactive releases outside the reactor, it is still important to focus on the development of systems that can mitigate the consequences of such events. In situations when the level of radiation does not permit the personal to perform the required measurements, online unmanned radiation monitoring systems may come to the play. For such a purpose the RMS-00x radiation monitoring system could be used, which is a modular system covering the functionality of dose rate measurement, air sampling and radiation map creation without requiring the human personnel to be present at the measurement site. The main purpose of the RMS-00x radiation monitoring system is the rapid deployment of unmanned monitoring devices to reduce the radiation burden on workers and on public. The system can be applied in the vicinity of a nuclear power plant (NPP) or at any location, where source of ionizing radiation could be present. Before this system is used in real conditions, its components must be thoroughly calibrated, based on certified measurement equipment and state-of-art simulation tools. This paper deals with the description of the RMS-00X sensor modules and demonstrates their functionality in combination with UAV. In addition, demonstration of the use of the developed technology was carried out as part of the regular emergency planning and preparedness of EBO NPP on 26th October 2017. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthquake hazard deaggregation is needed to estimate the earthquake parameters, both magnitude (M) and distance (R) which gives the most significant contribution to the resulting maximum acceleration and is also helpful as a determining parameter in the selection of earthquake time history for site response analysis in liquefaction studies. The research stages include collecting and processing seismic data, modeling earthquake sources, selecting attenuation functions, managing uncertainty elements, calculating earthquake hazards using Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (PSHA), and disaggregating PSHA results. This paper describes the information about the probabilistic seismic distribution of earthquake sources based on the magnitude and distance of the earthquake, which gives the highest contribution to the seismic hazard map. At a certain magnitude and distance, its combination can produce liquefaction potential. The implementation of disaggregation in the Bishkek area was calculated based on maximum ground acceleration (PGA) and 0.1-second spectra acceleration in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, which was carried out for the probability of exceeding 10% in 50 years (earthquake return period of 475 years) and 2% in 50 years. (earthquake return period 2,475 years). In the 500 year return period for both PGA and 0.1-second spectra, the mean magnitude value is 6.23, while for the 2500 return period, it is 7.25. Seismic disaggregation map for the Bishkek area, Kyrgyzstan for PGA at the mean Magnitude value varies between 4.25 – 7.25, while the mean distance (R) value varies from 14.89 – 45.35 km. Areas far from active faults will be predominantly affected by earthquakes from the background, whereas areas close to active faults will be affected by earthquakes originating from thrust faults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a society where environmental contamination and pollution incidents abound, risk communication (RC) is increasingly important. Nowhere more than in Japan after Fukushima nuclear accident did seem to be in need of RC. This paper analyzes an example of RC called ETHOS Fukushima, organized by the International Commission on Radiological Protection and other international organizations supported by the Japanese government. ETHOS is of global importance as it has been hailed as a model RC in regards to nuclear power. It was created after Chernobyl accident and then is being exported to Fukushima. Drawing on theories of affect and biopower, the paper examines affect as the object-target in RC. The paper's data is drawn from meeting summary reports, website posts, video clips, and mass media, as well as a collection of published exchanges (formulated as letters) between two key actors for ETHOS Fukushima (one female local citizen and a French economist who managed the original ETHOS and is involved in ETHOS Fukushima). The paper finds the main ETHOS's tropes in the narratives including self-responsibility, hope and anticipation, and cosmopolitan attachments. By situating ETHOS in a larger political landscape, the paper points out that such affective work is integral in shifting risks from the nuclear industry and the government to individual citizens. ETHOS's principles are in line with the RC literature; it is participatory, open dialogue and involves lay citizens. Yet its affective work helps to construct and reinforce a virtue of continued settlement rather than evacuation from the contaminated areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Fukushima accidents, all nuclear power plants in Japan have gradually stopped their operations and have long periods of shutdown. During those periods, reactivity of fuels continues to change significantly especially for high-burnup UO2 fuels and MOX fuels due to radioactive decays. It is necessary to consider these isotopic changes precisely, to predict neutronics characteristics accurately. In this paper, shutdown cooling (SDC) effects of UO2 and MOX fuels that have unusual operation histories are confirmed by the advanced lattice code, AEGIS. The calculation results show that the effects need to be considered even after nuclear power plants come back to normal operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Related to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Accident, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency Library has accumulated valuable information on Internet. In the Fifteenth International Conference on Grey Literature, we reported the development of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Archive using the DSpace. We have encountered a new, challenging issue of grey literature. In many cases, Internet information contains valuable numerical data. However, identifying the existence of numerical data on Internet sites is difficult, and the metadata created for the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Archive cannot currently be used to distinguish whether such information contains numeric data. Therefore, we have considered a method to identify numerical data and have introduced a "data flagging" system that has been used in the Internationala Atomic Energy Agency's International Nuclear Information System. In this paper, we introduce the proposed data flagging system and discuss its application to the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Archive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Great East Japan earthquake of 11 March 2011 was a tragedy of unprecedented scale, one of the largest natural disasters experienced by a developed nation. The disaster began with the primary damage of the earthquake, which further led to the devastating secondary damage of the tsunamis and culminated in the tertiary damage of the Fukushima I nuclear power plant. This last has become a source of concern not only to the people living in the power plant's vicinity, but elsewhere in Japan and around the world. This paper provides an overview of the disasters, the ongoing recovery operations and a summary of the lessons learned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The future PLINIUS-2 platform of CEA Cadarache will be dedicated to the study of corium interactions in severe nuclear accidents, and will host innovative large-scale experiments. The Nuclear Measurement Laboratory of CEA Cadarache is in charge of real-time high-energy X-ray imaging set-ups, for the study of the corium-water and corium-sodium interaction, and of the corium stratification process. Imaging such large and high-density objects requires a 15 MeV linear electron accelerator coupled to a tungsten target creating a highenergy Bremsstrahlung X-ray flux, with corresponding dose rate about 100 Gy/min at 1 m. The signal is detected by phosphor screens coupled to high-framerate scientific CMOS cameras. The imaging set-up is established using an experimentally-validated home-made simulation software (MODHERATO). The code computes quantitative radiographic signals from the description of the source, object geometry and composition, detector, and geometrical configuration (magnification factor, etc.). It accounts for several noise sources (photonic and electronic noises, swank and readout noise), and for image blur due to the source spot-size and to the detector unsharpness. In a view to PLINIUS-2, the simulation has been improved to account for the scattered flux, which is expected to be significant. The paper presents the scattered flux calculation using the MCNP transport code, and its integration into the MODHERATO simulation. Then the validation of the improved simulation is presented, through confrontation to real measurement images taken on a small-scale equivalent set-up on the PLINIUS platform. Excellent agreement is achieved. This improved simulation is therefore being used to design the PLINIUS-2 imaging set-ups (source, detectors, cameras, etc.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A tool was developed to facilitate the calculation of the early internal doses to residents involved in the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster based on atmospheric transport and dispersion model (ATDM) simulations performed using Worldwide version of System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Information 2nd version (WSPEEDI-II) together with personal behavior data containing the history of the whereabouts of individul's after the accident. The tool generates hourly-averaged air concentration data for the simulation grids nearest to an individual's whereabouts using WSPEEDI-II datasets for the subsequent calculation of internal doses due to inhalation. This paper presents an overview of the developed tool and provides tentative comparisons between direct measurement-based and ATDM-based results regarding the internal doses received by 421 persons from whom personal behavior data available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and subsequent tsunamis off the Pacific coastline of Japan's Tohoku region caused widespread devastation in Japan. As of June 10, 2016, it is reported that a total of 15,894 people lost their lives and 2,558 people are still unaccounted for. In Fukushima Prefecture, approximately 100,000 people are still obliged to live away from their homes due to the earthquake and tsunami as well as the Fukushima Daiichi accident. On the day, the earthquake and tsunami caused severe damages to the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)'s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (NPS). All the units in operation, namely Units 1 to 3, were automatically shut down on seismic reactor protection system trips but the earthquake led to the loss of all off-site electrical power supplies to that site. The subsequent tsunami inundated the site up to 4 to 5 m above its ground level and caused, in the end, the loss of core cooling function in Units 1 to 3, resulting in severe core damages and containment vessel failures in these three units. Hydrogen was released from the containment vessels, leading to explosions in the reactor buildings of Units 1, 3 and 4. Radioactive materials were released to the atmosphere and were deposited on the land and in the ocean. One of the most important lessons learned is an importance to prevent such large scale common cause failures due to extreme natural events. This leads to a conclusion that application of the defense-in-depth philosophy be enhanced because the defense-in-depth philosophy has been and continues to be an effective way to account for uncertainties associated with risks. From the human and organizational viewpoints, the final report from the Investigation Committee of the Government pointed out so-called "safety myth" that existed among nuclear operators including TEPCO as well as the government, that serious severe accidents could never occur in nuclear power plants in Japan. After the accident, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) was established on September 19, 2012. The NRA very urgently developed and issued the new regulatory requirements on July 8, 2014, taking into the account the lessons learned from the accident. It is noted that the NRA issued the Statement of Nuclear Safety Culture on May 27, 2015 which clearly expressed the NRA's commitment to break with the safety myth. This paper briefly presents the outline of the Fukushima Daiichi accident and summarizes the major lessons learned having been drawn and safety enhancements having been done in Japan for the purpose of giving inputs to the discussions to be taken place in the Special Invited Session "Fukushima, 5 years after". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

25 years after Chernobyl, the Fukushima disaster has changed the perspectives of nuclear power. The disaster has shed a negative light on the independence, reliability and rigor of the national nuclear regulator and plant operator and the usefulness of the international IAEA guidelines on nuclear safety. It has become clear that, in the light of the most severe earthquake in the history of Japan, the plants at Fukushima Daiichi were not adequately protected against tsunamis. Nuclear acceptance has suffered enormously and has changed the perspectives of nuclear energy dramatically in countries that have a very risk-sensitive population, Germany is an example. The paper analyses the reactions in major countries and the expected impact on future deployment of reactors and on R&D activities. On the positive side, the disaster has demonstrated a remarkable robustness of most of the 14 reactors closest to the epicentre of the Tohoku Seaquake although not designed to an event of level 9.0. Public acceptance can only be regained with a rigorous and worldwide approach towards inherent reactor safety and design objectives that limit the impact of severe accidents to the plant itself (like many of the new Gen III reactors). A widespread release of radioactivity and the evacuation (temporary or permanent) of the population up to 30 km around a facility are simply not acceptable. Several countries have announced to request more stringent international standards for reactor safety. The IAEA should take this move forward and intensify and strengthen the different peer review mission schemes. The safety guidelines and peer reviews should in fact become legally binding for IAEA members. The paper gives examples of the new safety features developed over the last 20 years and which yield much safer reactors with lesser burden to the environment under severe accident conditions. The compatibility of these safety systems with the current concepts for fusion-fission hybrids, which have recently been proposed for energy production, is critically reviewed. There are major challenges remaining that are shortly outlined. Scientific/technical achievements that are required in the light of the Fukushima accident are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces recent improvements for reactor physics codes in Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd(MHI). MHI has developed a new neutronics design code system Galaxy/Cosmo-S(GCS) for PWR core analysis. After TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi accident, it is required to consider design extended condition which has not been covered explicitly by the former safety licensing analyses. Under these circumstances, MHI made some improvements for GCS code system. A new resonance calculation model of lattice physics code and homogeneous cross section representative model for core simulator have been developed to apply more wide range core conditions corresponding to severe accident status such like anticipated transient without scram (ATWS) analysis and criticality evaluation of driedup spent fuel pit. As a result of these improvements, GCS code system has very wide calculation applicability with good accuracy for any core conditions as far as fuel is not damaged. In this paper, the outline of GCS code system is described briefly and recent relevant development activities are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper describes the creation of a corpus of newspaper articles about the Fukushima nuclear disaster, a coding frame for content analysis of human values expressed or reflected in that corpus and preliminary results for automation of the content analysis. Understanding the human values that motivate sentiment towards an idea can help to characterize the basis for that sentiment, and this work is a first step toward applying that approach to positions on controversial events reported in the news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Loss-of-Coolant Accident (LOCA) in Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) especially on Fukushima Nuclear Accident will be discussed in this paper. The Tohoku earthquake triggered the shutdown of nuclear power reactors at Fukushima Nuclear Power station. Though shutdown process has been completely performed, cooling process, at much smaller level than in normal operation, is needed to remove decay heat from the reactor core until the reactor reach cold-shutdown condition. If LOCA happen at this condition, it will cause the increase of reactor fuel and other core temperatures and can lead to reactor core meltdown and exposure of radioactive material to the environment such as in the Fukushima Dai Ichi nuclear accident case. In this study numerical simulation has been performed to calculate pressure composition, water level and temperature distribution on reactor during this accident. There are two coolant regulating system that operational on reactor unit 1 at this accident, Isolation Condensers (IC) system and Safety Relief Valves (SRV) system. Average mass flow of steam to the IC system in this event is 10 kg/s and could keep reactor core from uncovered about 3,2 hours and fully uncovered in 4,7 hours later. There are two coolant regulating system at operational on reactor unit 2, Reactor Core Isolation Condenser (RCIC) System and Safety Relief Valves (SRV). Average mass flow of coolant that correspond this event is 20 kg/s and could keep reactor core from uncovered about 73 hours and fully uncovered in 75 hours later. There are three coolant regulating system at operational on reactor unit 3, Reactor Core Isolation Condenser (RCIC) system, High Pressure Coolant Injection (HPCI) system and Safety Relief Valves (SRV). Average mass flow of water that correspond this event is 15 kg/s and could keep reactor core from uncovered about 37 hours and fully uncovered in 40 hours later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fukushima disaster is the largest nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, but it is more complex as multiple reactors and spent fuel pools are involved. The severity of the nuclear accident is rated 7 in the International Nuclear Events Scale. Expert said that "Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind". According to Mitsuru Obe, in The Wall Street Journal, May 16th of 2011, TEPCO estimates the nuclear fuel was exposed to the air less than five hours after the earthquake struck. Fuel rods melted away rapidly as the temperatures inside the core reached 2800 C within six hours. In less than 16 hours, the reactor core melted and dropped to the bottom of the pressure vessel. The information should be evaluated in detail. In Germany several nuclear power plant were shutdown, Italy postponed it's nuclear power program and China reviewed their nuclear power program. Different news come from Britain, in October 11, 2011, the Safety Committee said all clear for nuclear power in Britain, because there are no risk of strong earthquake and tsunami in the region. Due to this severe fact, many nuclear scientists and engineer from all over the world are looking for a new approach, such as homogeneous reactor which was developed in Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1960-ies, during Dr. Alvin Weinberg tenure as the Director of ORNL. The paper will describe the design requirement that will be used as the basis for innovative homogeneous reactor. Innovative Homogeneous Reactor is expected to reduce core melt by two decades (4), since the fuel is intermix homogeneously with coolant and secondly we eliminate the used fuel rod which need to be cooled for a long period of time. In order to be successful for its implementation of the innovative system, testing and validation, three phases of development will be introduced. The first phase is Low Level Goals is really the proof of concept;the Medium Level Goal is Technical Goalsand the High Level Goals which is Business Goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2012 great uncertainty as to the near term political future of Japan stagnated the Yen market. The DPJ government was deeply unpopular due to poor economic conditions and their handling of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster the previous year. However, the opposition LDP were leaderless after the sudden resignation of Sadakazu Tanigaki, and no heir was apparent. This paper conducts an event study around the LDP leadership election. We find that market efficiency was violated immediately before and after the election. In the former case through excessive mean reversion, and in the latter through the establishment of a downward trend following the election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is related to the concentration level of radiocesium and its presence in the trophic level of some marine biota in the Teluk Bayur marine water, West Sumatra. The purpose of this study was to obtain data on the increase of radiocesium concentrations in this area related to the possible impact of the nuclear accident at Fukushima. The concentration ratio of 134Cs and 137Cs is an indication of the impact of Fukushima. Sampling was carried out in the area around Teluk Bayur and radiocesium analysis was carried out on biota using a gamma spectrometer. The results of the analysis showed that the concentration level of 137Cs in the marine biota was at a very low and 134Cs was not detected. The absence of 134Cs indicates that the marine waters of Teluk Bayur were not affected by the Fukushima accident. Radionuclide 137Cs comes from global fall out. Using fish base data for the position of the biota at the trophic level and the concentration of 137Cs in the biota, it shows that 137Cs bio magnification occurs in the biota. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nuclear power station accident resulting from the Great East Japan Earthquake disaster has resulted in a constrained electricity supply. However, in this Asian region there is high temperature and high humidity and consequently dehumidification process requires a huge amount of energy. This is the reason for the increasing energy consumption in the residential and commercial sectors. Accordingly, a high efficiency air-conditioning system is needed to be developed. The desiccant ventilation system is effective to reduce energy consumption for the dehumidification process. This system is capable of dehumidifying without dew condensing unlike a conventional air-conditioning system. Then we focused on Wakkanai Siliceous Shale (WSS) as a desiccant material to develop a new desiccant ventilation system. This is low priced, high performance, new type of thing. The aim of this study is to develop a desiccant ventilation unit using the WSS rotor which can be regenerated with low-temperature by numerical calculation. The results of performance prediction of the desiccant unit, indicate that it is possible to regenerate the WSS rotor at low-temperature of between 35 - 45 °C. In addition, we produced an actual measurement for the desiccant unit and air-conditioning unit. This air-conditioning system was capable to reduce roughly 40 % of input energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even before Fukushima accident occurred, the safety authorities have required that new power plant designs must take into account beyond design-basis accidents including possible core meltdown. Among the mitigation strategies, the corium retention must be ensured, so a core catcher is implemented in the design of the Generation IV Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor. An internal core catcher within the vessel (in-vessel retention) is the option chosen for the European Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor investigated in the H2020 ESFR-SMART project. The new core investigated in ESFR SMART with lower void effect has a better behavior in case of severe accident. The use of passive control rods is also an improvement for prevention of severe accident. Moreover, we have in the ESFR SMART core dedicated tubes for corium discharge that should allow discharging quickly the melted materials and should help to prevent large criticality. Calculations show that after several seconds, these discharge tubes begin to open, and the corium arrives by this preferential way on the core catcher, quicker and in limited quantities at the beginning of the accident. However, the core catcher is designed to be able to retain the whole core meltdown. Its design allows good possibilities of cooling by natural convection of sodium. Some thermal calculations were provided with a multi-layer concept but the global mechanical conception seems difficult. So a one layer core catcher in molybdenum, material compatible with sodium and used on the core catcher of the last SFR, started in 2016: BN 800, is investigated. Explanations are given on the choice of this material proposed for the catcher and used for thermal calculations. With the proposed design, the corium is spread on the core catcher and the residual power of the corium can be dispelled by natural convection by the sodium circulating around and above the core catcher without boiling of sodium if the melted core is less than about 25% of whole core. In case of bigger quantities of melted core, boiling of sodium could appear under the core catcher. Further less conservative calculations would be necessary to better know the limit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an institutional theory perspective, we study the emergence of novel networks of innovation in the case of the post-Fukushima crisis in 2011. We conceive crisis as an event-driven desinstitutionlization mechanisms. Our study illustrates how abandonment of taken-for-granted daily practices and loss of legitimacy of established actors and their long value chains, gives way to individual bricolage and genuine self-organizing by local communities of users. This allows for renewed interactions and combinaison at operational level, inducing creativity and innovation. More precisely, our findings show that in such instance, 'networks of innovation' comes from two complementary forces a) novel networks of operational actors taking place in the crisis context to solve local problems and needs of the communities of users b) institutional entrepreneurs able to transform such needs into opportunities, structure them and scale them in an organised and efficient way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The temporal change of environmental contamination conditions after the Fukushima accident have been clarified based on large-scale environmental monitoring data repeatedly obtained in the 80 km zone. The decreasing tendency of air dose rates was confirmed to obviously depend on land uses. In human-related diverse environments the air dose rates have decreased much faster than the physical decay of radiocesium. The horizontal movement of radiocesium in undisturbed fields were found to be generally quite small, though it has gradually penetrated into the deeper parts of the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The methodology is devised by coupling different codes. The study of weather conditions as part of the data of the site will determine the relative concentrations of radionuclides in the air using ARCON96. The activity in the air is characterized depending on the source and release sequence specified in NUREG-1465 by RADTRAD code, which provides results of the inner cloud source term contribution. Known activities, energy spectra are inferred using ORIGEN-S, which are used as input for the models of the outer cloud, filters and containment generated with MCNP5. The sum of the different contributions must meet the conditions of habitability specified by the CSN (Spanish Nuclear Regulatory Body) (TEDE <50 mSv and equivalent dose to the thyroid <500 mSv within 30 days following the accident doses) so that the dose is optimized by varying parameters such as CAGE location, flow filtering need for recirculation, thicknesses and compositions of the walls, etc. The results for the most penalizing area meet the established criteria, and therefore the CAGE building design based on the methodology presented is radiologically validated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study related to stigma as divisive mechanisms in intergroup relations following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011. Topics discussed include prejudice and discrimination from people outside of Fukushima felt by Fukushima residents; role of media, interpersonal contacts, and government in shaping stigma perceptions; and negative image or misinformation about Fukushima.

Much of George Dracoulis's research career was devoted to utilising gamma-ray spectroscopy in fundamental studies in nuclear physics. This same technology is useful in a wide range of applications in the area of nuclear forensics. Over the last several years, our research group has made use of both high- and low-resolution gamma-ray spectrometers to: identify the first sample of plutonium large enough to be weighed; determine the yield of the Trinity nuclear explosion; measure fission fragment yields as a function of target nucleus and neutron energy; and observe fallout in the U. S. from the Fukushima nuclear reactor accident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake brought enormous damage across much of Eastern Japan. The post-disaster restoration and nuclear plant reactivation remain major political issues in Japan, however, the association between these policy preferences and social stratification is not clear. This study uses original survey data from three areas, Fukushima, Sendai, and Tokyo, to examine the relationship between a person's social status and his/her policy preferences. Results show that the most significant variables are age, sex, and living in a radiation area. Political efficacy and sense of social unfairness also affect nuclear power preference in the final model while perceived social stratification and household income have no effect. Interestingly, amount of damage by the disaster is not significant. The determinants of view on the pace of restoration are age, sense of social unfairness, gender role value, and political efficacy. Disaster related variables (e.g., evacuation, radiation area dummy) were also significant, as well as residence year. It means local origin people tend to say the pace is slow. The determinants of anxiety about the future are life satisfaction, social stratification, and health condition. We discuss possible causal mechanisms in the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Five years after the Fukushima disaster, the nuclear power plant explosion caused by a series of tsunamis that followed the East Japan Great Earthquake in March 2011, some residents in Fukushima Prefecture or its adjacent areas still express their concern about the radioactive materials emitted by the explosion. To address this concern, several hospitals in Fukushima Prefecture offer to measure the content of radioactive materials in bodies with a device called a "whole body counter." Drawing on the video-recordings of four discussion sessions held by one doctor with six examinees in total about the results of their whole body counter tests at a hospital in Fukushima Prefecture, I explore the ways in which a test and its results are mentioned and referenced as an orientation for a morally legitimate construction of worry. I argue, first, that the mentioning of the test and test results is indicative of the terminus of the ongoing account and, second, that the mentioning constitutes an arena for the morality of worry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fukushima accident emphasized the fact that ways to monitor in real time the evolution of a nuclear reactor during a severe accident remain to be developed. No fission products were monitored during twelve days; only dose rates were measured, which is not sufficient to carry out an online diagnosis of the event. The first measurements were announced with little reliability for low volatile fission products. In order to improve the safety of nuclear plants and minimize the industrial, ecological and health consequences of a severe accident, it is necessary to develop new reliable measurement systems, operating at the earliest and closest to the emission source of fission products. Through the French program ANR « Projet d'Investissement d'Avenir », the aim of the DECA-PF project (diagnosis of core degradation from fission products measurements) is to monitor in real time the release of the major fission products (krypton, xenon, gaseous forms of iodine and ruthenium) outside the nuclear reactor containment. These products are released at different times during a nuclear accident and at different states of the nuclear core degradation. Thus, monitoring these fission products gives information on the situation inside the containment and helps to apply the Severe Accident Management procedures. Analytical techniques have been proposed and evaluated. The results are discussed here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a consequence of the accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, the safety aspects of the one and only research reactor (31 years old) in Malaysia need be reviewed. Based on this decision, Malaysian Nuclear Agency in collaboration with Atomic Energy Licensing Board and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia develop a Level-1 Probability Safety Assessment on this research reactor. This work is aimed to evaluate the potential risks of incidents in RTP and at the same time to identify internal and external hazard that may cause any extreme initiating events. This report documents the methodology in developing a Level 1 PSA performed for the RTP as a complementary approach to deterministic safety analysis both in neutronics and thermal hydraulics. This Level-1 PSA work has been performed according to the procedures suggested in relevant IAEA publications and at the same time numbers of procedures has been developed as part of an Integrated Management System programme implemented in Nuclear Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science blogs are widely lauded as potentially powerful tools for risk and crisis communication, but many academic bloggers seem to use them merely for scholarly discussion. This study analyzes how two acute events, the Fukushima nuclear disaster and an E. coli epidemic in Germany, were covered by science bloggers and what reactions from readers they received. Readers' comments showed a strong need for interaction and discussion, which appeared most clear-cut on blogs that mediated events for a general audience. The complexity and tone of a blog post impact the readership, with more high-brow comments leading to a more academic discussion. Science bloggers can thus steer what role their posts should play during a crisis, and the analysis shows that some do this in a very responsible way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]