During the week of March 23-27, 2015, the NRC’s IRDP participated in a workshop (7th China-U.S. PSA Workshop) with contributions from Sarah Lennon (Department of Energy), Lee Gebert (Argonne National Laboratory), Earnest Kee (South Texas Project), and Zahra Mohaghegh, Tatsuya Sakurahara, and Justin Pence (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), and Glenn Kelly and Weidong He from AdSTM, LLC. The workshop covered the general principles and applications of risk-informed regulation and risk-informed decision making. The host of the workshop was the China National Energy Administration,...
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From 28 to 30 April, 2015, John Kinneman of AdSTM attended the 6th Meeting of the Forum of Nuclear Regulatory Bodies in Africa (FNRBA) in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. The Egyptian Nuclear & Radiological Regulatory Authority (ENRRA) made the logistical arrangements; the meeting was supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); a representative of the African Union Commission attended and actively participated. The current elected Chairman of the FNRBA, Dr. Augustin Simo, General Manager of the National Radiation Protection Agency in Cameroon lead the meeting with active...
From January 18-22, 2015, the AdSTM conducted a Siting Review Workshop at the offices of the Energy and Mineral Regulatory Commission (EMRC) in Amman, Jordan. Mr. Richard Emch of AdSTM and Mr. Stewart Bland of Chesapeake Nuclear Services conducted the training. The workshop was attended by 20 people from the EMRC, Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC), Ministry of Environment (MOENV), and Jordan Energy Resources, Inc. (JERI). The opening session of the workshop was attended by Dr. Majd Hawwari of EMRC and Dr. Khaled Toukan and Dr. Wa’il Y. Abu-El-Sha’r of JAEC. JAEC is examining several...
AdSTM conducted a consultation with NNR from January 5 to January 9, 2015 to provide assistance in the further development of their inspector qualification program. The consultation was performed as a result of a request by NNR to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as part of support to South Africa under the IRDP. The consultation was conducted by Dr. Charles Miller and Mr. Robert Gramm, and consisted of detailed reviews of South African Legislation, NNR regulations, policy documents, sample inspection reports, license applications, and licenses, and a number of interviews with NNR chief...
On December 17, 2014, Mr. Skip Young participated in the Texas A&M University Nuclear Power Institute’s Interregional Group Fellowship Workshop on Nuclear Power. The four week program focused on providing a basic knowledge of nuclear sciences and engineering. The program was built around the nineteen issues identified in the International Atomic Energy Agency "Milestones" document for new entry Member States that are considering the use of nuclear power for the first time. A central element was the need for an independent regulator and the importance of the safety culture. Topics for the...
From December 1 - 4, 2014, Eileen McKenna and Bob Gramm of AdSTM provided training on vendor inspection techniques in Hanoi, Vietnam. Workshop participants included staff from the Vietnam Agency for Radiation and Nuclear Safety (VARANS); Mechanical Research Institute; Center for material damage assessment (COMFA) - Institute of Materials Science; Vietnam Society of Sciences and Technology Welding - Ministry of Industry and Trade; Center for non-destructive evaluation (NDE); Center for technical standards of quality measurement; General Department of Standardization, Metrology and Quality;...
During the week of November 2-6, 2014, the NRC’s IRDP conducted a Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) Workshop for the Arab Atomic Energy Agency (AAEA) in Kuwait City, Kuwait. The workshop covers the general contents and uses of PRAs for nuclear power plants as well as aspects of risk-informed regulation and risk-informed decision making. The content of the workshop included risk assessment bases, PRA basics, event tree basics, fault tree basics, component failure data, human reliability analyses, sequence quantification, Level 2 PRA and severe accident progression, Level 3 PRA, seismic PRA,...
During the week of October 20-24, 2014, the NRC’s IRDP conducted a Construction Permit (CP) Application Review Workshop for the Arab Atomic Energy Agency (AAEA) in Rockville, Maryland. The workshop covers the regulatory prerequisites necessary to effectively review a construction permit application, explains safety objectives and concepts, and provides an overview of the licensing process. The content of each chapter of the Preliminary Safety Analysis Report (PSAR) is summarized, the regulatory review procedures are described, and example regulatory findings are provided. The workshop...
A Siting Application Review Workshop was presented on September 8-12, 2014 at Poland’s National Atomic Energy Agency (PAA) in Warsaw, Poland. The Workshop was presented by Dr. David Squarer, Mr. Richard Emch and Dr. Taekmo Shim of the Korean Institute of Nuclear Safety (KINS). This workshop was developed by AdSTM to illustrate how the NRC reviews a siting application. As such it follows the review procedure described in the siting related chapters of the standard review plan (SRP) (NUREG-0800). This Siting Workshop was modified to meet PAA’s needs. Modifications included additional class...
A Siting Application Review Workshop was presented on August 25-29, 2014 in Accra, Ghana at the Radiation protection Institute of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission. The Workshop was presented by Dr. David Squarer and Mr. Richard Emch. This workshop was developed by AdSTM to illustrate how the NRC reviews a siting application, either in the context of Early Site Permit (ESP), Construction Permit (CP), or Combined License (COL). As such it follows the review procedure described in the siting related chapters of the standard review plan (SRP) (NUREG-0800). The workshop was attended by 20...