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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Standards Program
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.
Sherrell R. Greene
Nuclear Technology | Volume 205 | Number 3 | March 2019 | Pages 397-414
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1505357
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper, the fourth in a series, presents the results of a study conducted to explore the role current U.S. commercial nuclear power plants (NPPs) play and the role a new type of NPP—a resilient nuclear power plant (rNPP)—could play in enhancing U.S. electric Grid, Critical Infrastructure, and societal resilience. A rNPP is a NPP intentionally designed, sited, interfaced, and operated in a manner to enhance Grid resilience. Four specific rNPP applications are discussed: (1) rNPPs as “flexible operations” electricity generation assets, (2) rNPPs as anchors of nuclear hybrid energy systems, (3) rNPPs as Grid Black Start Resources, and (4) rNPPs as anchors of Resilient Critical Infrastructure Islands. These four applications, individually and collectively, could enhance U.S. Grid, Critical Infrastructure, and societal resilience during normal conditions and in the wake of major national calamities stemming from natural hazards and/or malevolent human actions. rNPPs would be both tactical and strategic resilience assets, thereby extending the value proposition of nuclear energy well beyond that associated with nuclear power’s traditional baseload electricity generation. These are important topics as society grows increasingly dependent on electricity, and the natural hazard and malevolent human threat portfolio to the Grid continues to evolve.
