23 Feb (NucNet): The International Atomic Energy Agency has begun an Operational Safety Review Team (Osart) mission at the two-unit Almaraz nuclear station in central Spain – the 200th review of its kind carried out by the Vienna-based United Nations agency.
The IAEA said the team has been invited by the Spanish government and is spending around three weeks at the facility to carry out a review of operational safety using IAEA safety standards. These are a comprehensive set of documents that reflect a global consensus on what is considered a high level of nuclear and radiation safety.
Osart teams make recommendations and suggestions for improvement and identify good international practices and experiences that are shared internationally, leading to “stronger safety across the nuclear power industry”, the IAEA said.
The Osart programme began in 1982. Peter Tarren, head of the IAEA’s operational safety section and leader of the team conducting the Almaraz review, said many of the types of issues found in past years no longer appear in reviews because “the industry has fixed a lot of the things that we were finding some time ago”.
