Society News Archive

25 July 2014
NAS Report on Improving Nuclear Plant Safety

A new congressionally mandated report from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) concludes that the overarching lesson learned from the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident is that nuclear plant licensees and their regulators must actively seek out and act on new information about hazards with the potential to affect the safety of nuclear plants. 

The committee that wrote the report examined the causes of the Japan accident and identified findings and recommendations for improving nuclear plant safety and off-site emergency responses to nuclear plant accidents in the United States.  Health Physics Society President Barbara Hamrick served as a member of the NAS committee that produced this report.

"Lessons Learned From the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety of U.S. Nuclear Plants (2014)" can be downloaded for no charge from the National Academies Press website.

Read the entire NAS press release on the Office of News and Public Information page of the National Academies website.

A four-page summary of the report is also available on the website of the Division of Earth and Life Studies of the National Academies.