Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Congressional Hearings Transcript

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NRC and our industry to produce quick answers and quick
fixes in response to the Chernobyl accident may preclude
doing the thorough job qf analysis that is so important to
rational decision making. We must avoid the temptation to
'shoot from the hip.' Following TMI, there were long lists
of new requirements, and an attempt to require that everything
be done at once. In retrospect, many of the new
requirements were excellent, but the effort to implement
them without prioritization led to unforeseen
complications. We believe the industry and the NRC both
learned much from that experience. As a minimum, we believe
it would be premature to make proposals for additional
changes to U.S. approaches to safety prior to receiving and
analyzing the full report on the accident from the Soviet
Union.
One of the major reasons which mandates that we analyze this
event carefully prior to formulating recommendations for
U.S. light water reactors (LWRs) is that the Soviet designs
are significantly different from ours. Fundamental design
and operational differences exist that make side-by-side
comparisons extremely difficult. These fundamental differences
lead us to draw two immediate conclusions:
1. First, the differences will make it difficult to draw
easy applications to the U.S. situation. Many of the
lessons from Chernobyl will not apply to U.S. plants.
Some lessons will apply, and must be analyzed. Initial
challenges or event initiators can be very similar
between U.S. and Soviet plants. Also, we believe the
consequences of the Chernobyl accident, in terms of
accident source terms, radioactive transport, health
effects, and cleanup efforts are all important areas
that U.S. scientists must study and apply as appropriate
to our own safety programs and analysis efforts.
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