Fukushima plus: Testing for public safety

Next generation nuclear power plants are required to exceed the safety of existing nuclear power - which is already the safest form of electricity generation. The dominant harm from nuclear power plant accidents is not the radiation itself but rather the poor public response driven primarily by fear. ThorCon intends to address this fear by demonstrating on a live reactor an immediate full station blackout at full power with no operator intervention. This is a more severe external event than occurred at Fukushima Daiichi which had full power cooling for 45 minutes after reactor shutdown before the station blackout. The goal of the demonstration is to build confidence in the regulator, government, and press that an evacuation is not necessary even in very severe external events. Such a severe test naturally raises concerns about the safety of the test itself. This paper presents a series of smaller tests, each building on the previous tests leading up to the final live test to ensure that the test itself is not unsafe. (author)