Nuclear Power at the Beginning of a Renaissance

The recent energy crisis has caused an increased rethinking of European and Italian energy policy, where generating energy from nuclear sources is once again being discussed. Nuclear Renaissance was the title of George Apostolakis's presentation at the recent conference on Safety, Nuclear Risk and the Creation of an Italian Regulatory Authority, organized at Bocconi by Research Centers ELEUSI and IEFE. A professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Apostolakis is a member of the National Academy of Engineers, an honor reserved for a restricted number of scholars. He is also part of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards in Washington, as well as a member of the International Nuclear Technology German Commission. To round out his résumé, he worked on the space shuttle security project called for by NASA after the 2001 accident and has been unanimously recognized as the leader in the field of Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA).

Borgonovo: Professor Apostolakis, could you explain the meaning behind the title "Nuclear Renaissance?"

APOSTOLAKIS The accidents at Three Mile Island and especially Chernobyl created a strong aversion to nuclear sources twenty years ago. Today however, the scene has changed: from a safety point of view, reactor performance has been exemplary over the past twenty years and has contributed to regaining the trust of much of public opinion. The regulatory scene has stabilized and the excesses in regulation have been reduced thanks to the adoption of PRA methodologies. The fact that new reactors have not been built is misleading, as in the US, many requests for power increases have been accepted, which are equal to the construction of one new plant each year. In addition, the increase in lifespan with licenses extended from 40 to 60 years corresponds to an important increase in profitability, so much so that today the energy industry once again looks favorably at investments in nuclear power, even from a financial point of view.

Poletti: The regulator played an important role for the success of nuclear management...

APOSTOLAKIS In the US, the responsibility for nuclear regulation lies with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which responds directly to the US President and Senate. The NRC is an independent authority (a similar political structure was recently adopted in France). The NRC has the aim of ensuring "adequate protection of public peace and safety, promoting common defense and security and protecting the environment." After long debates in the sector concerning risk analysis, the question was raised not as to whether a human action was "safe," but rather "safe enough." In that sense the NRC created a regulation agency that is in some sense avant-garde, so much so that quantitative criteria to assess risk have been adopted for some time. The US NRC established the following "safety goals" for nuclear power: risk associated with the nuclear plant, both accidental death and deaths related to tumors, should be 1,000 times less than the risk of accidental death or death related to tumors run by a normal US citizen.

Borgonovo: One of the characteristics of US regulation was the central role of probability. Could you please explain how probability, quantitative methods and safety can be combined?

APOSTOLAKIS The NRC decided to adopt quantitative criteria after long scientific discussion and extensive debate. The methodology adopted is PRA, which forces the industry and the regulator to closely study the plant, and requires a detailed knowledge of all the incidental sequences. The industry has recently applied the PRA methodology to optimize maintenance: workers' exposure to radiation has thus been reduced to a factor of 10, and, at the same time, management costs have been reduced to a factor of 3, without sacrificing safety, but rather gaining an increased awareness of the importance of the components compared to risk.

Borgonovo: I participated in a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, which you chaired in 2001 and 2002, in which very technical and delicate issues were discussed. The meetings are actually open to the public: what role does transparency play in the regulatory process?

APOSTOLAKIS Transparency is the NRC's key modus operandi. All reports are open to the public, as well as all meetings and hearings. All documents can be downloaded from your home computer. Another key point is the involvement of the stakeholders from the very beginning of the decision-making process. The state of Nevada, for example, even after having fought to host atomic tests on their land a few years ago, is now opposed to depositing much less harmful radioactive waste, as a matter of principle: they were not involved in the decision-making process from the beginning. And now the way ahead is much more difficult for the federal government.

Poletti: An authority on nuclear safety does not exist at the European level. Do you believe that this kind of authority would facilitate another start to nuclear power in Italy?

APOSTOLAKIS It's a delicate issue: there are some tasks that can be entrusted to international organizations, such as international certifications of reactor design. However, I don't believe that this responsibility can be extended further to delegate the regulation of reactors at a European level: nuclear regulation should remain the responsibility of national governments.

Borgonovo e Poletti: One last question: in your opinion, is a nuclear renaissance in Italy possible?

APOSTOLAKIS It's not an easy question, but you have actually already been through the Renaissance, even if it wasn't nuclear...