ACRS Recommends Performance-Based Approach to Filtering Strategies

ACRS Recommends Performance-Based Approach to Filtering Strategies

from Nuclear Energy Institute by vbarq

The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview.
The NRC’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards said last week it does not support an agency staff position that would require the 31 U.S. boiling water reactors with Mark I and II containments to install external containment vent filters. Instead, the ACRS said in a Nov. 8 letter to NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane, it prefers more general “performance-based standards” that would give plant operators scope to decide on more innovative strategies to mitigate radiation releases in a severe accident.

The ACRS letter is a response to an as-yet unreleased staff paper on the subject. The draft paper recommends the installation of external filtered vents as the staff’s preferred option for minimizing the release of radiation in a severe accident where nuclear fuel has been damaged. The ACRS letter instead recommends an outcome-based approach, which it says “allows more scope for innovation and may result in more effective solutions.”http://safetyfirst.nei.org/safety-and-security/acrs-recommends-performance-based-approach-to-filtering-strategies/