Modeling the economic consequences of LWR accidents

The models include capabilities to estimate both onsite and offsite costs of LWR events ranging from routine plant outages to severe core-melt accidents resulting in large releases of radioactive material to the environment. The models can be used by both the nuclear power industry and regulatory agencies in cost-benefit analyses for decisionmaking purposes. The newly developed economic consequence models are applied in an example to estimate the economic risks from operation of the Surry Unit 2 plant. The analyses indicate that economic risks from U.S. LWR operation, in contrast to public health risks, are dominated by relatively high-frequency forced outage events. Even for severe (e.g., core-melt) accidents, expected offsite costs are less than expected onsite costs for the Surry site. The implications of these conclusions for nuclear power plant operation and regulation are discussed. (orig./HP)