Proposed Initiative to Improve Nuclear Safety and Regulatory Efficiency

In early 2013, the Commissioners at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued requirements for the NRC staff to pursue an exploratory effort on an initiative to enhance safety by applying probabilistic risk assessment to determine the risk significance of current and emerging reactor issues in an integrated manner and on a plant-specific basis. Recognizing that each operating nuclear power plant has unique contributors to risk, a licensee who performs such an assessment could use the insights gained to propose to the NRC a risk-prioritized plant modification schedule with respect to regulatory actions. Such prioritization, if approved, should both focus the licensee on the completion of the most important new safety measures first while also addressing the challenges in dealing with various concurrent new and existing regulatory positions, programs, and requirements. This paper discusses the initiative and explores how addressing plant-specific risk insights can reduce to overall plant-specific risk as well as the overall average risk.