The Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (ENSI) intends to continue improving the safety of Switzerland’s nuclear power plants. After its analysis of the events at Fukushima, ENSI therefore defined follow-up measures for the current year relating to eleven key topics.
The dispersion calculation can be used by the responsible emergency organisations (in particular ENSI and the National Emergency Operations Centre, NEOC) to predict the direction in which a radioactive cloud will move after its release from a nuclear power plant.
At the press conference held in Brugg this morning, the Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate ENSI published the results for Switzerland’s participation in the EU Stress test. The EU Stress test has for purpose to analyse the security situation of all european nuclear power plants in regard of the lessions learned of Fukushima. Learn more […]
The EU Stress Test provides renewed confirmation that Swiss nuclear power plants maintain a high standard of safety, and that the measures implemented to date on the basis of knowledge gained from Fukushima are correct. Taking account of the submissions from operators, the Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (ENSI) has, however, identified a further eight “open points” which supplement the 37 checkpoints derived from the Fukushima analysis.
The Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate ENSI is the supervisory authority for nuclear safety and security. The scope of the IRRS mission to Switzerland covers all facilities and activities that are supervised by ENSI.
All of Switzerland’s nuclear power plants will cope with an extreme flood of the sort that may occur on average once every 10,000 years, in addition to their ability to cope with other hazards. Even if the external power supply fails at the same time as the flood occurs, the plants can be brought into a safe condition. All the plants are clearly in compliance with the applicable limits.
The annual reports of ENSI concerning the year 2010 are available on ENSI’s website.
At the OECD Forum in Paris, ENSI Director Hans Wanner argued for a strengthening of the international monitoring of nuclear power. This followed comments by the Swiss Federal Councillor Doris Leuthard at yesterday’s meeting of minsters from the G8 and G20 countries on nuclear safety in Paris during which she called for internationally binding safety standards. Compliance with such standards should be monitored by independent inspectors from other countries and in the interests of transparency the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency should facilitate easy access to the results.
On Wednesday evening, the Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate, ENSI issued directives on the EU Stress Test to operators of nuclear power plants in Switzerland. This is the 4th directive to be issued by ENSI since the accident in Fukushima.
