The 8th China-U.S. PSA Workshop on Risk-Informed Regulation and Safety Culture was held in Shenzhen, China on March 14-18, 2016. The meeting was organized jointly by Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) on behalf of DOE and by Suzhou Nuclear Power Research Institute of China. The Workshop, hosted by China National Energy Administration was attended by 69 participants who asked many informed questions. The Workshop attendees represented 21 different Chinese nuclear organizations, including personnel from nuclear power plants and the regulator.
A useful feature of this workshop was the structuring of the Agenda in a manner that balanced the regulatory perspective with Industry (i.e. Utility) experience. Thus, each topic was covered from regulatory perspective, following immediately by Industry perspective. The NRC regulatory perspective was presented by David Squarer (AdSTM/NRC) and Glenn Kelly (AdSTM/NRC). The industry perspective was presented by Rick Grantom and Andrew Howe (consultants to ANL/DOE). This combination of perspectives was useful to the Workshop participants and presented a practical approach to probabilistic safety assessment (PSA). The Workshop was very effective in communicating the U.S. status and application of risk-informed regulations to China’s nuclear organizations. The PSA Workshop would allow China to identify weaknesses in their applications of PSA methodologies to design, regulate, and maintain nuclear power plants in China.