Accident at Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Plant: Lessons Learned for the Czech Republic

Accident at Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant significantly affected the nuclear industry at time when everybody was expecting the so called nuclear renaissance. There is no question that the accident has at least slowed it down. Research into this accident is taking place all over the world. In this paper we present the findings of research on Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in relation to the Czech Republic. The paper focuses on the analysis of human performance during the accident. Lessons learned from the accident and main human errors are presented. First the brief factors affecting the human performance are discussed. They are followed by the short description of activities on units 1–3. The key human errors in the accident mitigation are then identified. On unit 1 the main error is wrong understanding and operation of isolation condenser. On unit 2 the main errors were unsuccessful depressurization with subsequent delay of coolant injection. On unit 3 the main error is the shutdown of high pressure cooling injection system without first confirming that different means of cooling are available. These errors lead to fuel damage. On unit 1 the fuel damage was probably impossible to prevent, however on unit 2 and 3 it could be probably prevented. The lessons learned for the Czech Republic were presented. They can be summarizes as follows: be sure that plant personnel can and knows how to monitor and operate the crucial plant components, be sure that the procedures on how to fulfill the critical safety functions are available in the symptomatic manner for situations when there is no power available at the plant, train personnel for these situations and have sufficient human resource available for these situations.