Development of evaluation method for economic consequences of severe accident at NPP

Abstract

A nuclear power plant accident has onsite and/or offsite consequences. A common framework into which many of the consequences of an accident may be translated is their economic cost. Though there are some consequence analysis codes, these are limited only to estimate only offsite consequence. In this study, economic losses are estimated for the case of onsite and offsite consequences for the sample PWR plant at Yong-Gwang site. For the estimation of offsite consequence, economic database unique to Korean economic structure is utilized as many as possible. By grouping of various cost components, each cost groups are compared each other. For the detailed estimation of offsite decontamination cost, offsite surface around the plant is divided into five types of surface. This division of surface types is agricultural field, wooded land, roof surface for representing house, asphalt road and water surface. But on the water surface, it is assumed that no decontamination operation is required. The comparison shows that at the severe accident, offsite consequences are more severe than onsite consequences. And in agricultural growing season, the consequence even becomes more severe. It also turned out that the importance and selection of much appropriate criteria will play a major role, because the economic consequences are widely varying depending on how the criteria was chosen.