MareNuc

Activity Name

MareNuc: Operationalisation of risk assessments for marine reactors

NKS-B
Research Area

Emergency preparedness

Project Summary

The aim of the activity is to establish a Nordic framework for operationalisation of risk assessments of marine reactors. The immediate background is that while significant improvements have been made in the understanding of the design and operations of marine vessels risk for accidents and subsequent releases studied through scientific publications and the previous NKS NucVess activity, there exists no shared procedure for how to complete impact assessments on this renewed scientific basis. Such procedures have been worked out earlier for all relevant types of commercial nuclear power plants in order to standardize the response and aid less resourceful countries in their effort in emergency preparedness, and recently a set of recommendations have been issued also for research reactors (IAEA, Safety Reports Series, No. 53, 2008). Historically, in case of naval accidents impact assessments has been completed long after the actual incident and with considerable difficulty as most of the attention in the emergency preparedness effort are devoted to commercial civilian nuclear power. In addition, the objective is to have this dialogue between the most relevant countries in relation to the areas with the highest density of operational vessels, as these reactor types are out of scope for most international safety coordination mechanisms. Compared to the previous proposal, we have added a contribution from STUK in order to anchor this effort in similar generic efforts earlier related to commercial power plants.

This activity will consist of two workshops to formulate recommendations for the completion of such assessments a) in relation to the present type of vessels and reactors in operation, and b) in relation to new technologies and concepts being developed.

Lead Organization

Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority (NRPA), Norway

Contact Person

Ole Reistad
phone number: +47 67162500