NRC's Significance Determination Process: Current Status and Future Trends in Assessing Risks Attributed to External Events

摘要

As articulated in the PRA PolicyStatement published in 1995, the NRC strives to increase the use of PRA technology in the NRC regulatory activities to the extent supported by the state-of-the-art in PRA methods and data. Various recent regulatory activities, a number of which were prompted as a result of the Fukushima event, has created an environment in which new information and methods in the area of assessing risks due to external events (e.g., seismic, floods, tsunamis) are emerging. Other initiatives and the NRC's strategic goal to continue to enhance the use of PRA in all regulatory matters, including in areas such as nuclear security, as articulated in the NRC's Strategic Plan, will continue to provide additional motivation to continue to invest in PRA methods and data development. The current risk assessments in support of the SDPs rely primarily on information available in IPEEEs . The NRC has been using more recent information in its fire risk assessment methods and data that became available as a result of the NFPA 805 rule , to the extent they are available. The NRC plans to continue to use new methods and information that emerge in other areas such as flooding and seismic, as they become available in future SDPs.