Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Congressional Hearings Transcript

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QUESTION 2. (Continued) - 2 -
Prote^;ion Agency and the Food and Drug Administration, will be
requi red.
The third and last major area is source term and accident
consequences. A major effort will be to examine how the
radiological release mechanism that occurred at Chernobyl apply to
'.S. ""eactors, and whether the NRC's current model's ability to
prp^ict radiological source terms remain valid. The validity of
current meteorological models for transport of radionuclides in
the atmosphere will also be investigated.
Commissioner Asselstine adds:
In my judgment, there are several lessons that we can learn from
Chernobyl and should apply to the U.S. nuclear program. Some of
these lessons reinforce previous safety decisions made in this
country. In this vein, the Chernobyl accident seems to
demonstrate the wisdom of some of the new safety requirements
adopted in the United States in the wake of the Three Mile Island
accident in 1979. One example is improved emergency planning
around commercial nuclear power plants, which provides an added
measure of public protection, independent of plant safety systems,
to mitigate the consequences of an accident resulting in the
offsite release of radioactivity. Another example is the addition
of hydrogen control features on certain types of plants which are
intended to prevent large-scale hydrogen explosions that could
breach the reactor containment. And still another example is the