One year after Fukushima: rethinking the future

Proceedings of the International Workshop
Bologna, 15-16 March 2012

Kind of publication : VOLUME

Edited by : G. Grasso, F. Rocchi

Publisher: ENEA

pp. 264, 2012

ISBN:978-88-8286-273-2

Price: free

One year after the accidents occurred at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station as a consequence of the disastrous Tōhoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami, it was organized a two-days International Workshop in Italy with the aim of taking stock of the current situation. With the help and participation of specialists in the areas of safety analysis, accident management and radiation protection from all over the world, all the aspects related to the accidents are covered:

• the analysis of the initiating events, the sequence and the consequences;
• the roadmap planned for the plant and environment restoration, as well as the status of the situation in Japan one year after the event;
• the lessons learned and the impact that the accidents have had on the nuclear sector in general.

The three Technical Sessions in which the Workshop was divided reflect indeed the selected aspects.

This volume contains six papers, collected together in the first part, and the presentations given at the Workshop. Both papers and presentations are given here because they are complementary in nature and content to each other and cross-references between them is sometimes made. Some authors provided both the presentation and a paper, others only the presentation.

Despite the severe impact the Fukushima events have had on the public opinion worldwide, the nuclear option still remains one of the main pillars of the sustainable, economic and reliable production of electricity, with the global nuclear share destined to increase steadily in the forthcoming years: all over the world 435 nuclear reactors still produce about 370 GW of electric power, and other 64 new units are under construction. According to this, we hope these proceedings might help scientists and technicians in forming a rational view of the facts, and to approach science and engineering with a renewed hope in the possibility of conceiving ever safer nuclear energy systems.