NRC has played a leading role during the last six years in cooperative efforts to improve safety in the former Soviet Union, mainly through bilateral information exchanges, joint technical working groups, exchanges of safety inspectors, specific coordinated research and, recently, through the implementation of nuclear safety assistance to the Newly Independent States. The NRC is supporting six organizations in the R.F. who are participating in this project which is being coordinated by the nuclear regulatory agency Gosatomnadzor. BNL is writing procedure guides for each of the important tasks, running workshops to explain the tasks, and spending time with the Russian team as they carry out their tasks.
Formal reviews take place periodically.
This effort was begun in 1994 and is expected to be completed in 1998. For RES, BNL is also providing one or two-week training courses on computer codes that were developed for the NRC for safety analysis. These courses have been given to the nuclear regulatory staffs of Russia and Ukraine. For NRR, BNL is providing one-week training courses and consultations on a variety of regulatory issues to the nuclear regulatory staffs of Russia and Ukraine. The training courses have been on decommissioning licensing, how to review safety in previously licensed reactors, radiation protection, and containment construction and operational safety.