The commissioner of the of the Spanish Nuclear Safety Council (CSN), Javier Dies, has attended, via videoconference, the 49th meeting of the Commission on Safety Standards (CSS) of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in which it has been worked, among other issues, on the development of the IAEA Safety Guides and the impact of the pandemic on regulatory content.

The Chair of this Commission, Rumina Velshi -President of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission-, began the meeting by introducing the new chairs of the nuclear safety, transport and emergency preparedness and response committees and announced the creation of a new group dedicated to the Commission's strategic planning.

The acting presidents of the different committees that make up the CSS, the Nuclear Safety Standards Committee (NUSSC), Transport (TRANSSC), Emergency Preparedness and Response (EPRESC), Radioactive Waste (WASSC) and Radiological Protection (RASSC), in addition to the Security committee-, have presented the results of the self-analysis of the exercise and fulfillment of its objectives in the last three-year period, as well as the terms of reference and priorities for the next term with special emphasis in the strategic aspects and setting of operational objectives, as well as in the medium and long term. These Committees have the active participation of the CSN technical experts with extensive experience and recognized prestige in various topics.

Safety Guides

As a particularly significant point of the meeting, the drafts of eight safety guides were presented for approval, all of them from the Nuclear Safety Committee, and another for the scope of the content foreseen in a guide that is soon to be developed. These guides address aspects of a purely technical nature such as criticality and handling of fissile material to organizational aspects and staff training.

In his statement, the commissioner Javier Dies highlighted “the need for the correct selection and training of personnel both in the field of the nuclear industry and in the regulator to ensure adequate management of the human factor to preserve nuclear safety and radiological protection”. Likewise, within the scope of these regulatory guides, it has revealed "the necessary consideration of the improvement in safety derived from the developments of advanced accident-tolerant fuel, also enabling an increase in its enrichment".

Finally, the progress of the report prepared by the Commission's secretariat on the possible repercussions on nuclear safety and Security standards derived from COVID-19 or similar situations have been discussed. Regulatory activities related to the development of future modular reactors (SMR) have also been described along with the preparation of a safety report on the implications of the 2012 UNSCEAR report on the IAEA safety standards in relation to the attribution of the effects of radiation on health and the inference of radiation risk.

* Check here the glossary of technical terms *