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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
Cristina Corrales, Javier Gil, Mateo Ramos (Tecnatom S.A.)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 1485-1494
Computerized procedures systems seem to be the next digital technology to enter day to day plant operations. But although this has been truth for a while now, few implementations of them have been successful, even when done in new plants with highly digitized control rooms that seem to constitute a more natural environment for them. The human performance benefits of a computerized procedure system have been widely documented in the nuclear industry but are still difficult to quantify. Implementation projects and maintenance of the procedures once computerized are still challenging and the uncertain return of investment is preventing the adoption of this systems by the existing plants. The research documented in this paper has been obtained by gathering information from different sources to understand the benefits that a computerized procedure system might bring for nuclear power plants and see if they outweigh the cost and perceived risks of moving from paper to digital.
