Michael Norris
Operating Reactor Licensing Team Leader
Nuclear
power plants need uranium-based fuel to run, and while the NRC doesn’t
regulate mining of uranium ore, we do license and regulate the
facilities that process uranium into reactor fuel.
While
these fuel facilities don’t present the same concerns as a commercial
power reactor, the NRC still requires them to plan for various types of
events that might affect public health. All nuclear fuel facilities must
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be prepared for fires, natural events such as hurricanes, and emergencies involving other hazardous chemicals.
Facilities in the uranium conversion and enrichment process have
to guard against a potential chemical hazard, not radioactive
contamination. The uranium in these facilities is combined with
fluorine, a very corrosive chemical. These plants’ emergency plans must
be able to keep plant workers and the public safe if the uranium
compound gets into the atmosphere.
Facilities
that create the fuel pellets have to be concerned with unintentionally
collecting too much enriched uranium in a small space and causing a
small-scale nuclear reaction, called a criticality. These plants’
emergency plans must protect both plant staff and the public from the
criticality’s radiation.
In
their emergency plans, fuel facilities must address how they would
respond to each of these potential accidents. They must describe the
equipment that would be used, the responsibilities of various personnel,
and how offsite response organizations would be notified in an
emergency.
In
addition, fuel facilities must also participate in exercises to
practice their response to simulated emergencies and indicate how they
will train their employees to respond to emergency situations. The NRC
reviews and inspects each site’s emergency plan to make sure it meets
federal requirements to adequately handle the types of emergencies that
could happen at fuel facilities.
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