An estimation of the off-site economic consequences of a severe accident at the Pickering nuclear power station

The primary objective of this study was to estimate the off-site financial consequences of a severe accident at the Pickering nuclear power station in Pickering, Ontario, without consideration of the probability of the occurrence of such an accident. The off-site consequences considered include radiation-induced health effects incurred by the public; population evacuation and relocation costs; crop and milk disposal costs; decontamination costs associated with farm and non-farm land and improvements; and land area interdiction costs. The estimation of these consequences was made using the MELCOR Accident Consequence Code System (MACCS). Site-specific data for an area 100 km around Pickering were provided as input to the model. MACCS was run for two accident categories and five weather samples each over three directions representing the most likely wind direction, the direction that could be expected to cause the greatest financial impact, and a third sector designed to complement the other two. Results show that a severe accident in which a substantial fraction of the volatile radioactive elements of the core of a Pickering reactor was released could, in the absence of effective emergency response, cause tens to hundreds of early deaths, hundreds to thousands of early injuries, and could produce economic damage in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars to 11 billion dollars. There are questions about the validity of the model, especially as it applies to Canadian reactors; however, these are probably reasonable 'ballpark' estimates