Abu Dhabi: Officials from the UAE’s nuclear sector spoke confidently on the safety measures put in place at the Barakah nuclear facility site, during a seminar held on Wenesday in Abu Dhabi.
Organised by the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR), the seminar highlighted the actions taken by the UAE after the Fukushima nuclear disaster incident that took place in 2011, when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant suffered major damage as a result of a tsunami.
“Within a few months of the accident FANR asked the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (Enec) to submit a safety assessment report describing the response of the Barakah facility plant in case of an external event, and to describe what design improvements would be both reasonable and practical to make,” said Ian Grant, deputy director-general for operations at FANR.
“Some nine months after the Fukushima accident, we had a report that covered hundreds of pages, with the report addressing the adequacy of the design of the nuclear power plant… the report [also] identified several design enhancements,” he added.
As part of its safety review, several different threats were analysed and taken into consideration according to Grant.
“The technical areas that were assessed included earthquakes, flooding, and other extreme natural or man-made events,” he said.
Grant added that the regulations and standards fell in line with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
“FANR’s regulations for its nuclear facility are based on relevant IAEA safety requirements. So we focused on regulations, and to verify that they didn’t contain any gaps.
“FANR also actively participated in nuclear safety standard committee meetings to review the implications of the Fukushima incident,” he said.
Mohammad Sabaan, head of PRA application, Nuclear Risk Management, at Enec, also spoke positively on the lessons that were learnt and implemented after the Fukushima accident.
“From the beginning, Enec looked to move according to whatever new standards were being put in place after Fukushima. Enec established a safety review task force in March of 2011, which met with its Korean counterpart, and held several extensive meetings on what actions could be carried out to increase the safety standards of our nuclear power plant.
“We adopted 33 new measures that were applied by the Koreans, and added 10 more new measures from our side to improve the safety standards at Barakah,” he added.
According to Sabaan, these improvements included a number of features including designs, and how the nuclear reactor would be able to deal with cases of emergencies or accidents to its core reactor.
