Though it is now broadly accepted that nuclear safety regulation is mature, nuclear safety regulators are under pressure to become more effective. The process of ensuring plant safety is a continuously changing one in light of changes in the electricity market, nuclear fuel cycle, and other elements of the industry. Perhaps the most relevant issue is that of regulating high-level waste disposal. Extension of the operating lives of existing reactors also poses new regulatory challenges. Ensuring the independence of nuclear safety regulators is important.
Human factors are critical to maintaining safety.
Yet these factors have to be among the most difficult to master. The quality of management, engineering and training must be high to ensure safety. Some participants doubted that they could ever consider the requisite level of quality to be attained. Others noted the absence of any serious effects on public health or the environment of civilian nuclear programmes in the OECD as evidence of the high levels of safety already attained. The challenge of energy security 24.