Japan's nuclear disaster has created an opening for a stronger international effort to raise reactor safety standards and increase accountability of nuclear regulators, some participants in last week's International Atomic Energy Agency conference said. But national agendas still dominate nuclear oversight.

As expected, the conference did not produce commitments by the world's nuclear power nations to give mandatory teeth to IAEA's current voluntary standards and safety reviews of member nations' nuclear facilities. "The agency does not have the legal authority to go anywhere and carry out these missions," conference President Antonio Guerreiro of Brazil acknowledged to reporters.

Nor did representatives of the nations attending agree to fund a larger IAEA budget that would be needed to expand the agency's role. "I do not think we have sufficient financial resources to fund future activities created by the Fukushima accident," Yukiya Amano, IAEA director general said.

The weeklong session in Vienna was intended more as a brainstorming session than a decisionmaking nuclear summit, said IAEA adviser Richard Meserve, president of the Carnegie Institution for Science and former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

"There was consensus on the need to increase application of IAEA safety standards and to modify them to reflect Fukushima's lessons. Also, perhaps more importantly, there was a sense that the IAEA peer-review services should be more widely applied, should be more public and should have more follow-up to assess adequacy of response," Meserve said.

The conference contrasted the hope that stronger international oversight could bolster public confidence in nuclear power, and the reality that governments are not about to cede authority over their nuclear programs to IAEA or other international bodies.

Deputy Secretary of Energy Dan Poneman, in his remarks to the IAEA conference, said the agency was "uniquely positioned to coordinate a global lessons-learned effort on nuclear safety procedures and examine ways to improve international cooperation among emergency responders."

U.S. underscores need for national 'responsibility'

In an interview, Poneman also underscored the reality of national control. "We feel very strongly that you must put the first line of responsibility closest to the risk and the operators who manage that risk," he said. "We need to hold the line operators responsible and accountable and make sure they are subject to the jurisdiction of an independent regulator.

"As long as we stay focused on the clarity of the responsibility and keep responsibility firmly vested in national organizations and independent regulators, reinforced by a strong peer review ... that is a message we are very comfortable with," he said.

In his remarks to the conference, Meserve summarized the case for a larger IAEA agenda.

"First, as the Fukushima accident has reinforced, we still have much to do to ensure nuclear safety. The Japanese are very experienced on nuclear matters, and yet they clearly got into serious trouble. The event reveals the need for a strengthened global safety system," he said.

Countries turning to nuclear for the first time lack the hard-won experience in regulation and industry practices that have evolved in nations with long-established nuclear program, Meserve said. A strengthened international backstop is essential to assure the safety of the new nuclear power programs, he said. But the United States and some other countries with established nuclear operations rely on reactors exceeding or approaching 40 years of age. These present unique and not fully understood safety challenges, he said, and international reviews should help maintain safety margins at older plants.

The IAEA does not have the power now to make independent safety inspections or disclose results of its inspections unless governments agree, Meserve noted. IAEA members discussed strengthening the agency's hand in various ways, including a proposal that IAEA inspect one nuclear plant out of every 10 over the next three years, sharing the results with all agency members. This proposal was noted only as a "suggestion," however, in the IAEA conference's summary statements.

IAEA sees a possibility of change

A formal amendment to the IAEA's Convention on Nuclear Safety would take years and present major diplomatic challenges, Meserve said. But acting informally, the IAEA can put more pressure on countries to accept the agency's safety reviews and release the findings publicly, he added.

"At the least, the schedule of the reviews should be public so that those countries that have not had the benefit of peer review [by the IAEA teams] are revealed," he said. The IAEA could also initiate an inspection and review process focused on the safety lessons learned from the Fukushima event, he added.

A conference summary listed calamities in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant crisis that it said demand more attention by all nuclear operators. They include the impact of low-probability but potentially devastating accidents; the compound dangers of emergencies at multiple reactors at a single plant site; the risks of hydrogen explosions when fuel cores are damaged; and the safety of spent fuel storage containment.

Close ties between Japan's nuclear industry and its government regulator contributed to safety vulnerabilities at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, an IAEA review and other assessments of the accidents have concluded. Banri Kaieda, Japan's minister of trade and industry, told the IAEA conference that the creation of a separate regulatory agency was under serious consideration in Japan.

The responses from the nations participating in the Vienna conference were colored by their individual political cultures and industry experience, Meserve said. "There were differences in emphasis, but I wouldn't say I saw anyone really dig in heels. I think something will come of this," Meserve added.