The Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA) is arranging a training course on Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at PNRA School of Nuclear Safety, here from May 2 to 6. Experts from USA, Spain and Hungary would deliver lectures in the course. Participants from PNRA and Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission will attend the training course.
Probabilistic Safety Assessment is used for verifying and improving safety in nuclear power plants by identifying accident scenarios, detecting weak links, determining the consequences and prioritising solutions. All this can be done even when the plant is still in the design stage. Various regulatory bodies of the world, including those of the developed as well as the developing countries, are now using this technique.
PNRA has decided to enhance the use of this technique in Pakistan and has made it mandatory for the licensees to show that the probability of occurrence of damage to the rector core is not more than one in 100,000 years.
It is also obligatory for the licensees to prove that the probability of release of radioactivity to the environment is not more than one in one million years.
These targets are to be met by the licensee for all the new nuclear power plants to be installed in the country.
Meeting these targets makes the chances of occurrence of such events so small that these are comparable to a chance of getting killed by a meteor falling on earth.
As a spin off it also ensures protection of nuclear power plants, which are national assets and where considerable investment has been made. Being knowledge-based regulatory authority, PNRA stresses on acquiring and disseminating new technologies within its organisation and in those of its licensees.
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