Abstract

This work explores recent developments in severe accident analysis and risk assessment to inform and expand on these perspectives. Variations in nuclear reactor safety policy, reactor designs, extent of use of risk information in decision making, and other aspects can impact how safety policies regarding nuclear installations are developed and implemented. In particular, the relationship of nuclear policy in the United States is explored with regard to quantitative risk criteria or goals and their relationship with health objectives. In the United States and many countries around the world, health objectives are defined with regard to the potential impact to the public in terms of “early” fatalities and “latent” fatalities. This paper discusses how the link between these health objectives and quantitative risk goals have been developed and how recent information may change the perspective originally held when the policies were established (e.g., that there would be a significant margin between the risk of operating nuclear facilities and these goals). Given that these metrics play a significant role in how current risk applications are used for operating nuclear reactors, especially when results are to be compared with thresholds, it is important to recognize the evolution and current understanding of associated embedded margins. Given the additional 30 years of insights, the expansion of risk application in the commercial nuclear reactor industry, and improvements in methodologies and computing capabilities, significant additional information has been gained. These insights are discussed and presented in this paper.

摘要

这项工作探索了严重事故分析和风险评估的最新发展，以为这些观点提供信息并进行扩展。核反应堆安全政策，反应堆设计，决策中使用风险信息的程度以及其他方面的变化会影响有关核装置安全政策的制定和实施方式。特别是，在定量风险标准或目标及其与卫生目标的关系方面，探讨了美国核政策的关系。在美国和世界许多国家，根据“早期”死亡人数和“潜在”死亡人数确定了对公众的潜在影响的健康目标。本文讨论了如何建立这些健康目标与定量风险目标之间的联系，以及最近的信息如何改变政策制定时最初持有的观点（例如，运行核设施的风险与这些目标）。鉴于这些指标在当前的风险应用如何用于运行核反应堆方面发挥着重要作用，尤其是在将结果与阈值进行比较时，重要的是认识到演变和对相关隐含边际的当前了解。有了另外30年的洞察力，商业核反应堆行业中风险应用的扩展以及方法和计算能力的改进，已经获得了重要的附加信息。