Estimating the financial consequences of a severe nuclear accident in Canada

Abstract

The offsite financial consequences of a severe accident at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Plant in Pickering, Ontario, are estimated with use of the Melcor Accident Consequence Code System (MACCS) developed at Sandia National Laboratories (Alberquerque, NM). Although the consequences of an accident have implicitly been included in developing the Canadian Nuclear Liability Act, no detailed study of these consequences has ever been conducted except by Ontario Hydro, a public utility and a branch of the Ontario Ministry of Energy with responsibility for nuclear power planning and development in the province of Ontario. The MACCS model was adapted to the southern Ontario case and run over a range of weather and source-code scenarios for a region with a 100 km radius around Pickering. Estimates were made of the health and property-damage consequences of an accident under these scenarios, with varying evacuation and dose threshold assumptions. While the results show a wide range of possible damages, they indicate that the liability limits set in the Nuclear Liability Act may be too low.