A RE-LOOK AT THE US NRC SAFETY GOALS
Since they were adopted in 1986, the US NRC’s Safety Goals have played a valuable role as a de facto risk acceptance criterion against which the predicted performance of a commercial nuclear power reactor can be evaluated and assessed. The current safety goals are cast in terms of risk metrics called quantitative health objectives (QHOs), limiting numerical values of the risks of the early and latent health effects of accidental releases of radioactivity to the offsite population. However, while demonstrating compliance with current safety goals has been an important step in assessing the acceptance of the risk posed by LWRs, new or somewhat different goals may be needed that go beyond the current early fatality and latent cancer fatality QHOs in assessing reactor risk. Natural phenomena such as hurricanes seem to be suitable candidates for establishing a background rate to derive a risk goal as their order of magnitude cost of damages is similar to those estimated in severe accident Level 3 PRAs done for nuclear power plants. This paper obtains a risk goal that could have a wider applicability, compared to the current QHOs, as a technology-neutral goal applicable to future reactors and multi-unit sites.
- Research Organization:
- Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- AMERICAN NUCLEAR SOCIETY
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-98CH10886
- OSTI ID:
- 1108561
- Report Number(s):
- BNL--101078-2013-CP
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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