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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
Gregory J. Van Tuyle, Peter Kroeger, Gregory C. Slovik, Bing C. Chan, Robert J. Kennett, Arnold L. Aronson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 91 | Number 2 | August 1990 | Pages 185-202
Technical Paper | Safety of Next Generation Power Reactor / Nuclear Saftey | doi.org/10.13182/NT90-A34427
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Three advanced design concepts, including two liquid-metal-cooled reactors (LMRs), the Power Reactor Inherently Safe Module (PRISM) and the Sodium Advanced Fast Reactor (SAFR), and a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) are discussed and compared. Each provides inherent or passive safety to improve system safety. The focus is on two primary objectives: reactor shutdown and shutdown heat removal. The LMR and HTGR concepts rely on inherent reactivity feedback to provide an inherent reactor response under a failure-to-scram condition; SAFR also provides a passive shutdown system using Curie point magnets (the self-actuated scram system). For shutdown heat removal, the LMR and HTGR designs rely on passive air cooling of the reactor vessel as the ultimate safety-grade system.
