Oil Safety: Lessons from the Nuclear Industry

History is punctuated by processes of learning and re-learning, no doubt. Early this summer, during a Senate debate on the sadly notorious British Petroleum platform, George Apostolakis, Commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, testified.

When asked what were the differences in terms of safety measures between the oil industry and the nuclear industry, he replied "The principle of defense in depth". This principle establishes safety as the founding axiom for every operator in the nuclear field, and one of the ongoing debates that currently pervades nuclear risk analysis in North America centers on how to measure "safety culture". How can we find indicators that will tell regulators whether an organization is truly dedicated to safety as a basic value, or if it is backsliding on the idea of defense in depth.

We must note that the actions of American safety authorities are fully transparent. In the case of nuclear energy, attention to safety is obligatory, in view of the catastrophic consequences of an accident.
I mentioned learning and re-learning because 30 years ago, after the disastrous accident at Chernobyl, the nuclear industry was the object of the same questions being asked of the oil industry today about safety. The problem with risk management is to find management answers that are large-scale and, if possible, definitive. Among risk managers, a joke that commonly circulates goes like this: A guy says to his friend "Yesterday I crashed my car into a tree, but I learned my lesson. From now on, when I go that way I'll swerve and avoid it." And his friend says, "But when you swerve, look out for all the other trees."
Sound advice. But the absence of major accidents in the last 20 years would seem to indicate that the terribly negative lessons of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island have been learned and transformed into deep re-thinking of nuclear risk management. This disaster-free record is also positively affecting public opinion to the point where some speak of a nuclear rennaissance, as several countries, including the USA, UK, Germany and Italy, prepare to review their policies. With respect to other countries, Italy finds itself in a position at once privileged and disadvantaged. The privilege consists in starting over from scratch, with the chance to apply current best practice to the whole system from the outset. The disadvantage lies in the scale of the undertaking for a system of Italy's size. The technological complexity involved would require the restructuring of the entire system, from the establishment of a safety authority to the management of the nuclear waste. Such a program must feature total transparency, both in the step-by-step communication of the decision to return to nuclear energy and in the management and regulation of its functioning.

The American experience of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site, a $9 billion project blocked at near-completion by local opposition, is another learning moment: without transparency, you cannot expect people to trust and accept nuclear power.