Review of IAEA Transport Safety Standards in Light of 28 Lessons Learned from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Stations Accident

After the nuclear accidents in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the IAEA Director General requested in July 2011 that the Commission of Safety Standards (CSS) review all IAEA Safety Standards within 12 months. The CSS established an Action Plan to review the Safety Standards, including the transport safety standard, i.e. the Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material (SSR-6), through gap analysis methodology. The Transport Safety Standards Committee (TRANSSC) accepted the methodology in its 23rd meeting (TRANSSC 23) in November 2011, and discussed the effects of the accident on the transport safety standard, which was based on the report from the Japanese government. This included 28 lessons learned from the accident. Following the TRANSSC 23 decision to provide a list of possible transport actions identified from the lessons, the Secretariat in cooperation with Japanese colleagues distributed the list of identified items with discussion starters to the Member States in the end of December 2011. In March 2012, experts convened at the Consultancy Meeting on the Technical Basis Document and discussed the list alongside comments from the Member States and the Preliminary Gap Analysis provided by Japan. They made following recommendations, which were generally accepted by TRANSSC 24 held in June 2012. - The Transport Regulations, SSR-6: ? No issues requiring urgent revision have been identified, ? The need to enhance emergency response provisions should be considered, and ? The test conditions that could arise from very unlikely, but possible natural events should be evaluated by a Working Group. - The Advisory Material, TS-G-1.1: ? Additional guidance for hydrogen generation etc. should be reviewed. - The Guidance for Planning and Preparing for Emergency Response, TS-G-1.2: ? The planned revision should be expedited and incorporated the results of gap analysis. Consequently, the 2012 Edition of SSR-6 was issued as scheduled in October 2012, and any impact on the Regulations, if identified, would be proposed in the next review/revision cycle. Consideration of possible natural events would be discussed in the Technical Meeting on Transport Environment in July 2013. The revision work on TS-G-1.2 is underway. In this paper, an outline of gap analysis and discussions are presented.