is there enough insurance?

The CHERNOBYL reactor explosion in 1986

"Nearly 8.4 million people in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia were exposed to radiation when the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine blew up. Beyond the cancers and chronic health problems, especially among children, some 150,000 kilometres - an area half the size of Italy - were contaminated, while agricultural areas covering nearly 52,000 square kilometres, more than the size of Denmark, were ruined."

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The cost of the Chernobyl reactor explosion

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The insurance cover for nuclear accidents is poor indeed

"The following losses were not covered by the Paris/Vienna Conventions or the Nuclear Installations Act 1965 at the time of Chernobyl and remain uncovered today:

• The costs of precautionary ,preventive or protective measures (e.g. evacuations,relocations, radiation monitoring, medical expenses, emergency service costs, food marketing and consumption restrictions, loss of agricultural goods;
• Economic losses consequent upon the occurrence but not consequent upon specific damage to claimant's property or person;
• The cost of damage to the wider unowned environment;
• Economic loss or loss of profit as a result of contamination to the wider (unowned) environment (e.g. tourism);
• Decline in property prices;
• The cost of cleaning up contaminated land;
• Psychlogical damage.

Modernising the liability regime would involve: explicit provision for all these heads of damages including damage to the environment and natural resources;

• abolishing any time limit for bringing claims given the very long periods that can run before impacts manifest themselves;
• accepting mere exposure to a radiological hazard as the basis for statutory liability;
• defining clearly the level of contamination sufficient to constitute "damage";
• specifying clearly how in the event of insufficient funds, funds are to be distributed as between e.g. early and late claimants, those severely injured and those with property damaged;
• obtaining and retaining (claimants') access to appropriate lawyers, scientific experts, technologists over perhaps a period of fifteen years for a complex law suit;
• equipping courts to deal well with possibly thousands of claimants, as well as with complex scientific and technical evidence, and so as to avoid disagreement over claims."

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The consequences of the Sizewell 'B' RPV explosion

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The government's words on risk control

"The purpose of the Green Book is to ensure that no policy, programme or project is adopted without first having the answer to these questions:

· Are there better ways to achieve this objective?

· Are there better uses for these resources?"

An example of the kind of measures imposed can be found at Annex 4, where Her Majesty's Government/Treasury requires the keeping by each Department of a RISK REGISTER or RISK LOG, as follows:

"BOX 4.1: RISK REGISTER (RISK LOG)

PURPOSE A risk register lists all the identified risks and the results of their analysis and evaluation.

Information on the status of the risk is also included.The risk register should be continuously updated and reviewed throughout the course of a project.

CONTENT

A risk register is best presented as a table for ease of reference and should contain the following information:

1. Risk number (unique within register);
2. Risk type;
3. Author (who raised it);
4. Date identified;
5. Date last updated;
6. Description;
7. Likelihood;
8. Interdependencies with other sources of risk;
9. Expected impact;
10. Bearer of risk;
11. Countermeasures; and
12. Risk status and risk action status."

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Nothing there when you look

(Ref. 14) "No relevant records can be located" Thus, it would appear that either the treasury directive is ignored in this respect, or the entries are hidden from public view, like the cracks in the pressure vessel.

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