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According to Lennart Hammar, former number two at the Swedish nuclear power inspectorate and chief of the reactor safety department, the IAEA demands are that current reactors must reach a level of safety of one accident (meltdown) in 10.000 reactor years, while new reactors must reach one in 100.000 (all Swedish reactors at least reach the 100.000 level). At least 9 out of 10 accidents must not mean a discharge of any nuclear materials. On top of this all Swedish reactors have an extra filter, essentially a tower filled with crushed stone. This means that in the event of a discharge of radioactive gas, 99,9 % of the radionuclides will be trapped in the tower, never reaching the atmosphere.
According to Areva (page 47)
With the EPR, the probability of an accident leading to core melt, already extremely small with the previous-generation reactors, becomes infinitesimal: smaller than 1/100,000 (10-5) per reactor/year, for all types of failure and hazard, which fully meets the objective set for the new nuclear power plants by the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group (INSAG) with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - INSAG 3 report, smaller than 1/1,000,000 (10-6) per reactor/year for the events generated inside the plant, making a reduction by a factor 10 compared with the most modern reactors currently in operation, smaller than 1/10,000,000 (10-7) per reactor/year for the sequences associated with early loss of the radioactive containment function.
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