| The INES scale for rating of nuclear incidents and accidents | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Presentation and goals of
the INES scale In 1987, France set up a scale to rank the severity of nuclear events which was extensively used by the IAEA in creating its own INES scale (International Nuclear Event Scale). This scale, based partly on objective criteria and partly on subjective criteria, is designed to facilitate media and public understanding of the significance, in terms of safety, of nuclear incidents and accidents. It is not a safety assessment tool and can, under no circumstances, be used as a basis for international comparisons. There is in particular no strict correlation between the number of non-serious incidents declared and the probability of a serious accident occurring in a facility. Nature of the events concerned by the INES scale The INES scale is designed to cover events occurring in all civil nuclear facilities, including those classified as secret, and during transport of nuclear materials. At the initiative of the ASN, the IAEA Member States are experimenting with a new INES part dealing with radiation protection incidents and covering radioactive sources and transports of radioactive materials. This new part incorporates the principle of the relationship between the radiological risk and the severity of the event. France initially limited the systematic experimental application of this new scale to BNIs. A broader application to medical, industrial and research installations will gradually be implemented. Thus in 2005, this experimental scale was used to rate an irradiation incident in the CEA's Frédéric Joliot unit of the Orsay hospital. Use of the INES scale in France All events with significance for nuclear safety are declared by the licensees within 24 hours. This declaration comprises a proposed rating subject to the approval of the ASN, which alone is responsible for the final rating decision. Using the INES scale enables the ASN to select those events and incidents which are sufficiently important for it to issue a communication: • all incidents rated level 1 and above are systematically published on the www.asn.gouv.fr website. • incidents rated level 2 and above are also the subject of a press release; • incidents rated level 0 are not always made public by the ASN. They are published if temporarily classified pending the result of further investigations, if they are of interest in terms of safety analysis or methodology, or if they are of particular interest to the media. |
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Rating of nuclear events on the INES scale in 2005 |
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1.4.2 The ASN and the media in emergency situations | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The ASN must at all times be ready to respond to the need for information should a serious event occur, in particular in a nuclear installation or during radioactive material transport. For this reason, most of the emergency response exercises organised (at the rate of about ten per year) include media pressure. This media pressure, simulated by journalists accredited for the exercise, is designed to assess the responsiveness of the ASN and the ministries concerned when faced with the media, as well as the consistency and coordination of the messages put across by the various stakeholders, be they licensees or authorities, both nationally and locally. In addition, "real" media requests are often made during these exercises, with journalists anxious to observe decision and information channels in action, the deployment of the emergency assistance teams, population sheltering or evacuation operations organised for the exercise and the simulated absorption of stable iodine tablets. Apart from the media pressure simulated by the journalists, the intervention of experts and other players (ministers' advisers, CLIs, elected officials, etc.) during the exercises constitutes a further step forward in simulating a real nuclear accident situation, which would inevitably lead to many and varied voices being heard at the same time. In September 2005, the ASN activated its national emergency response system on two occasions, when nuclear power plant on-site emergency plans were triggered: • following a water leak in an electrical
equipment room in the Nogent-sur-Seine nuclear power plant; The ASN distributed and placed on its website press releases clarifying the reasons for and consequences of each event, as well as the action it was preparing to take with respect to the licensee. |
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