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The human factor in licensing and operating the next generation of nuclear plants
As human factors specialists working at the intersection of human performance and nuclear operations, we are witnessing one of the nuclear sector’s most significant transitions in decades. The emergence of small modular reactors, microreactors, and other advanced designs is reshaping the industry’s landscape. Digital instrumentation and controls, passive safety systems, and increased automation are creating opportunities for greater safety margins and more flexible operation. These same features also fundamentally redefine what it means to “operate” a nuclear plant. Interactions among human roles, automation, and passive systems shape how people maintain awareness, exercise judgment, and intervene when necessary. These developments affect both operational realities and the regulatory foundations on which nuclear safety is built.
Joonhong Ahn
Nuclear Technology | Volume 157 | Number 1 | January 2007 | Pages 87-105
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT07-A3804
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Mathematical models and a computation code have been developed for total release of transuranic (TRU) and fission product radionuclides from waste packages in the Yucca Mountain Repository (YMR) into the surrounding geosphere in the case of simultaneous package failure. The total amount of these radionuclides in the geosphere, which is called the environmental impact in this paper, has been expressed in terms of radiotoxicity. Inventory abstraction has been made, based on the data provided in the Final Environmental Impact Statement published by the U.S. Department of Energy. Various types of waste packages in the YMR have been abstracted into commercial spent nuclear fuel (CSNF) and defense waste. For defense waste, co-disposal and naval spent fuel have been abstracted separately. Numerical results show that within the total environmental impact, contribution from the defense waste packages is about 10%, which is close to the fraction of the repository capacity allocated for defense waste. Impacts due to isotopes of TRU and their decay daughters are dominant, compared with those from fission product nuclides. If the mass of TRU nuclides to be disposed of in the repository were reduced by a factor of 100, the impact from CSNF would become smaller than that from defense waste.