22 Aug (NucNet): The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has directed its staff to complete several actions in response to recommendations from a task force examining the accident at Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant.
The recommendations, on improving several safety-related areas, were made by the agency’s ‘near-term task force’. NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko said on 19 August 2011: “I am pleased to see the Commission moving the agency forward on these important issues, and I look forward to receiving additional input from our technical experts, the industry and the public as we proceed.”
The NRC established the task force to examine the agency’s regulatory requirements, programmes, processes, and implementation in light of information from the accident in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami last March.
The task force presented its report to the Commission on 12 July and made 12 recommendations covering areas such as loss of electrical power, earthquakes, flooding, spent fuel pools, venting and preparedness.
NRC staff have 18 months to consider the first and broadest recommendation, a call to revise the NRC’s regulatory approach. The task force said it felt the NRC should find a better balance between the use of risk analysis to inform regulation and the defence in depth concept that underlies many of the agency’s original requirements.
NRC staff have until 9 September 2011 to produce a paper outlining which of the remainder of the recommendations staff believe should be implemented “without unnecessary delay”. Staff must produce a further paper, by 3 October 2011, prioritising the remaining task force recommendations. This paper is expected to set out all agency actions to be taken in responding to lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi accident.
The task force’s full report is available on line: http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1118/ML111861807.pdf
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