Translated material
Magate approved a plan for preventing accidents at nuclear power plants
- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Tuesday approved a plan of action to prevent accidents at nuclear power plants, reports Lenta.ru .
- The draft plan of action to increase nuclear security in the world was adopted after the most powerful nuclear disaster over the past 25 years that occurred in Japan. The Magate Committee members managed to come to a consensus without voting: the plan was adopted on Tuesday behind closed doors, even before the collection of the full composition of the organization, which will be held next week.
- The plan involves observing the work of existing nuclear plants and taking measures to prevent disasters of a similar scale. In particular, a periodic assessment of the activity of reactors is provided for by independent experts on a voluntary basis.
- In the draft draft, more stringent conditions were set: the inspections should have been forced in nature, and 10% of nuclear installations in the world would undergo a mandatory expert verification every three years. In particular, as reported by Reuters, representatives of Russia demanded the introduction of compulsory inspections, and France called for the introduction of new world standards before the end of 2011. However, diplomats from the United States and China insisted that the terms of the plan be softened, and argued their opinion by the fact that ensuring the safety of nuclear installations is a matter of each individual country.
- In addition to the plan for strengthening security measures at the enterprises of the nuclear industry, during the National Meeting of the Council of Managements of the IAEA, it is supposed to discuss the nuclear program of Iran, which Western countries are suspected of creating a nuclear weapon, and an accident at the Japanese nuclear power plant Fukushima-Dayichi, according to the Rosatom website .
- Six months ago, on March 11, after a powerful earthquake of magnitude 9.0, the fourteenth-meter wave of the tsunami caused by him covered the island of Honsu, on which the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant is located. As a result, the reactor power supply, cooling system and diesel generators were disabled. Since March 12, when work was already underway to cool the reactor, a series of explosions and fires occurred at the nuclear power plant. Until now, work is underway to eliminate the consequences of the explosion and leakage of radiation. In August, it was decided to build a protective dome around the most affected reactor.
- Other Japanese nuclear power plants suffered from the earthquake, but there the disaster did not reach such a scale.
- Currently, there are 432 existing atomic reactors in the world. According to General Director of the Magate Yuki Amano, by 2030 their number can be from 500 to 700.