Safety goals for nuclear power plant regulation

Abstract

A survey and comparison has been made of 10 widely disseminated safety goal proposals originating in Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. When the proposals are placed in a directly comparable numerical context, they are remarkably similar in the inferred levels of safety. The development of quantitative safety goals by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is also reviewed. While progress has been made in structuring technically and politically defensible goals, because of the way the regulatory philosophy has evolved in the U.S. the implementation of such goals could well turn out to be more difficult than defining the goals themselves. The safety goals are useful in providing guidance to the designers, operators and regulators of nuclear power plants with regard to public safety concerns as well as plant reliability and engineering considerations.