Development and application of nuclear safety goals in Japan. Lessons learnt from the case of 2003 draft safety goals

The Nuclear Safety Commission in Japan offered a detailed draft of nuclear safety goals to the public in 2003, though its position was ambiguous in nuclear safety regulation. This report shows the circumstances behind the development and application of 2003 draft safety goals based on our interviews with the experts who had been involved in making the draft. According to our interviews, they had intention to utilize safety goals for improving risk management of regulatory authority and nuclear energy industry, such as ameliorating deterministic regulations, accumulating experience of risk assessment and management, promoting related research, and communicating risks with general public. In practice, however, safety goals had functioned as a tool for emphasizing an assertion that 'nuclear power plants had already been safe enough'. We identified the following four major impediments to utilizing safety goals; 1) lack of sharing overall recognition of the importance of establishing safety goals among nuclear community, 2) excessive emphasis of internal event risks which leads to an inferior priority to tackle with the issue of external events risks, 3) adverse effect of 'tunnel-visioned incrementalism', that is, nuclear energy industrial entities are attracted their foci too much on what they have been told to do by regulators or local governments, and, 4) negative attitude to disclose the outcomes of risk assessment for fear of societal reactions. To encourage upcoming safety goals and risk management, this report provides the following points for overcoming these problems; 1) sharing insights on the reasons why nuclear community set up safety goals, 2) introducing the concept of adaptive risk management for maintaining questioning attitude, 3) conducting a periodic review of goal attainment level and also safety goals themselves from the eyes of a detached observer, and, 4) rebuilding relationship with society beginning with arguments with local stakeholders over 'what needs to be protected and from what?' (author)