The cost of nuclear accidents in France

IRSN has produced estimates for costs of possible nuclear accidents on French PWRs. This paper outlines the strong differences between severe accidents, which feature a core melt but more or less controlled radioactive releases, and major accidents implying massive releases. In the first case, crisis managers would be faced with a mainly 'economic' accident, the larger part of costs being borne in a diffused fashion by the economy at large (image costs and impacts on electricity production). In the second case, authorities would be faced with the challenges of a full-scale radiological crisis involving sizeable areas of contaminated territories and large numbers of radiological refugees. (author)