RISK INFORMED OPTIMIZATION OF NUCLEAR REGULATION

摘要

The mission of a high quality nuclear regulation is to ensure the protection of public health and safety, and protection of the environment from nuclear radiation contaminants. As a result of the Fukushima accident and new security concerns, most countries with nuclear power generating stations decided to revise and improve their regulatory practices. However, regulation and subsequent design modifications seem to have a bottomless impact on budget demands. This paper will compare the existing regulatory criteria and requirements related to the safety of nuclear reactors, nuclear materials, and nuclear waste repositories with a modified set of optimized criteria and requirements. The optimization methodology will use improved probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) calculations augmented by qualitative defense in depth considerations. It will prioritize regulatory criteria, rules and guidelines according to their respective impact on the integrated regulatory budget. Unique computer programs were developed to sort and rank the large number of regulatory tasks and activities according to their respective costs, benefits and uncertainties involved. If implemented, the risk informed optimization methodology of nuclear regulation will improve the safety, reduce the overall budget of regulation, reduce the overall budget of nuclear stations, and will improve the stature of nuclear regulation in the view of the public. Various successful case studies of the risk informed optimization methodology are presented in the paper, along with proposed future applications.