The objective of this type of regulation is to ensure that the licensee accepts the responsibility and is operating the plant at the desired level of safety. The public can more easily understand prescriptive and deterministic standards and visible compliance with those standards. It is harder to fully grasp the concept of risk . In order for the new regulation to succeed, the NRC and the industry must convince the public of its value. Risk informed, performance based regulation holds considerable promise for enhancing reactor safety and for reducing regulatory burden.
Risk informed, performance based regulation provides a basis for new approaches.
Whatever the new deregulated environment may bring, it will demand better of us, NRC and the licensees alike, than in the past. Founder of the biennial symposium series and Center Director Ajaya Kumar Gupta delivered the second-day keynote speech at the Sixth Symposium. It leads to distrust of nuclear technology when something actually goes wrong, such as the Three Mile Island and the Chernobyl accidents. On the other hand, use of conservative methods in pursuit of absolute safety has been and continues to be an unnecessary cost burden. Rational and cost-effective solutions to engineering problems are possible.