From November 18 - 21, 2013, Mel Fields and Bob Gramm of AdSTM provided training on construction and vendor inspection techniques to the Forum of Nuclear Regulatory Bodies in Africa (FNRBA). Participants from 10 countries including Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia, and South Africa attended the workshop. The participants are involved with the FNRBA technical working group that deals with nuclear power plant regulation. The delegation from South Africa included numerous staff from the National Nuclear Regulator.The AdSTM instructors discussed nuclear...
News from 2013
Between October 21 and 24, 2013, the NRC’s IRDP supported an IAEA meeting in Vienna, Austria to assess whether IAEA Safety Guide SSG-16, “Establishing the Safety Infrastructure for a Nuclear Power Programme ,” should be updated based on Fukushima lessons learned. SSG-16 contains 200 Action Items, and associated explanatory text, to help newcomer countries build the necessary safety infrastructure. IAEA Safety Guide SSG-16 is based on IAEA safety requirements and covers the first 3 phases of infrastructure development (i.e., decision-in-principle to proceed with the development of a nuclear...
From October 14 – 18, 2013, Mel Fields and Bob Gramm of AdSTM provided training on construction and vendor inspection techniques. Workshop participants included staff from the Vietnam Agency for Radiation and Nuclear Safety (VARANS), Ministry of Construction, Ministry of Industry and Trade, and the utility Electricity of Vietnam (EVN). The AdSTM instructors discussed nuclear quality assurance, construction inspection program attributes, regulatory enforcement, vendor inspection protocols, defect reporting for vendors, and training and qualification for regulatory personnel. The workshop...
The NRC/IRDP conducted a Codes and Standards Workshop for BAPETEN – the nuclear regulatory body of Indonesia – in Jakarta, Indonesia from October 7 to 11, 2013. The Workshop addressed the following topics: Introduction to codes and standards, NRC regulations related to codes and standards, Mechanical codes and standards, Instrumentation and Control and Electrical codes and standards, and Civil/Structural codes and standards. The Workshop emphasized the importance of codes and standards when performing regulatory reviews and inspections of nuclear facilities, during the siting phase, the...
The NRC/IRDP conducted a Siting Application Review Workshop for the Arab Atomic Energy Agency (AAEA) in Amman, Jordan from September 22 to 26, 2013. Jordan’s research and training reactor (JRTR) is currently under construction at Jordan’s University of Science and Technology (JUST) near Irbid, Jordan. The addition of an RTR module and a presentation on small modular reactors (SMRs) helped diversify the content of the Amman Siting Application Review Workshop. A site visit to the JRTR gave participants an opportunity to observe first hand important considerations in RTR site selection. The...
From September 8 – 12, 2013, Bill Bateman and Mel Fields of AdSTM provided training to Jordan Nuclear Regulatory Commission (JNRC) staff on inspection techniques for use during the construction of the Jordan Research Test Reactor. The AdSTM instructors discussed attributes that lead to effective inspections (e.g., qualified inspectors and adequate inspection procedures) and how to develop a construction inspection program. During the week-long workshop, the instructors assisted JNRC staff in developing inspection procedure and inspection report formats that met the needs of their regulatory...
On September 1 to 5, 2013, a regional workshop on regulatory fundamentals for nuclear and radiation installations was held in Amman, Jordan for representatives of the Arab Network of Nuclear Regulators (ANNuR). Under the sponsorship of the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety (KINS), representatives of 12 countries heard presentations on IAEA standards and guidance, national regulatory infrastructures of individual ANNuR countries, and the regulatory perspective of Korea and the United States. Mel Fields of AdSTM presented the regulatory perspective of the USNRC, which included the regulatory...
A Nuclear Executive Workshop was conducted August 25-29 in Amman Jordan for the Jordan Nuclear Regulatory Commission (JNRC). In addition to JNRC managers and staff, representatives from other Jordanian government agencies attended and contributed to the workshop. The attendees discussed and identified important issues to be considered in the development of a national nuclear regulatory framework in Jordan. The AdSTM workshop leaders were Dr. Charles Miller, Richard Black, and Scott Newberry. The AdSTM team was accompanied by Mark Shaffer, Deputy Director OIP. At the request of the JNRC, Mr....
On July 17-19, 2013 Kirk Foggie (NRC/OIP) and David Squarer (AdSTM) attended the Technical Conference Commemorating the 10th Anniversary on the State Management of Radiation and Nuclear Safety in Vietnam and the 1st Nuclear Regulatory Conference. In addition, they discussed future IRDP support to VARANS, and explored the status and schedule for the new nuclear power program in Vietnam. Mr. Foggie delivered a welcome speech for the US NRC that included a verbatim welcome message from Chairman Mcfarlane. The Minister of Science and Technology of MOST presented Mr. Foggie with a “Medal for the...
From June 18-21, 2013, the NRC conducted a workshop in Warsaw, Poland on how the NRC assesses the environmental impacts of the construction and operation of nuclear power plants. Jack Cushing, Andrew Kugler, and Michael Masnik of NRC’s Office of New Reactors (NRO) and Richard Emch of AdSTM conducted the workshop with support from Danielle Emche of the NRC’s Office of International Programs and Eduardo Sastre of NRO. Thirty-two people participated in the workshop; the participants were mainly from the General Directorate of Environmental Protection, the National Atomic Energy Agency, and the...