Publication Laka-library:
Handbook of reactor incidents (1994)
| Author | A.Wenisch, Ökologie-Institute |
| Date | September 1994 |
| Classification | 6.01.1.10/12 (ACCIDENTS - NUCLEAR REACTORS) |
| Front | 
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From the publication:
Introduction In the period being observed, January 1988 to December 1993, there were 416 NPPs operating. This is an average because some plants were shutdown and others were connected to the grid in this period. Fig. 1 shows the share of reactor types, of which the PWR is by far the most frequently used. Almost 6000 events occurred in these 416 NPP, the average is about 2 events per reactor per year. This figure is not a measure of the risk of reactors, but the consequence of the different information policies of each country. The sources used for the database and for this booklet were technical publications, official national reports (e.g. of NRC of the US or the German Ministry for the Environment) and an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) database, MICROPRIS. The latter contains many events, but is mainly an operational database, therefore, it is listing of all outages in NPPs - planned or unplanned (i.e. events occurring during operation), but doesn't contain any events during shutdown or refuelling. MICROPRIS contains the information submitted from utilities or national authorities to the IAEA and consequently the type and quality of the reporting varies dramatically. The US authorities provide detailed information, therefore the best descriptions of events and problems were obtained for US reactors. French and German authorities claim that most events in their plants occur during outages, not during operation, thus they are not recorded in the MICROPRIS database. Russia and the East European countries report events in their NPPs to the IAEA, but in most cases without details. According to MICROPRIS equipment failure is the single largest cause of accidents, with operator errors also being significant.
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