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Section 5. Chernobyl Issues

The staff's assessment of the implications of the Chernobyl accident on the safety regulation of U.S. commercial nuclear power plants, as reported in NUREG-1251,¹¹⁷⁴ led to the conclusion that no immediate changes in NRC's regulations regarding the design or operation of U.S. commercial reactors were needed. However, further consideration of certain issues was recommended, most of which were found to be already under consideration as a part of ongoing NRC work.

This section includes all the work recommended in NUREG-1251¹¹⁷⁴ and outlined in the staff's follow-up program, SECY-89-081.¹¹⁷⁵ As noted in NUREG-1251,¹¹⁷⁴ the Chernobyl experience will continue to be taken into account in various areas of reactor safety. The follow-up program was limited to work on those issues whose relationship to the events at Chernobyl was direct, clear, and substantial, but with reasonable extrapolation to account for the large differences in specific design and operational features. Other work that was generally related to severe accidents was to be pursued (or considered for pursuit), in accordance with established procedures, outside the Chernobyl follow-up program.¹¹⁷⁵

The tasks contained in this section follow the numbering sequence of the various chapters in NUREG-1251.¹¹⁷⁴ The issues identified for further pursuit under each task follow the labeling of the follow-up program.¹¹⁷⁵

Task CH1: Administrative Controls and Operational Practices

Task CH2: Design

Task CH3: Containment

Task CH4: Emergency Planning

Task CH5: Severe Accident Phenomena

Task CH6: Graphite-moderated Reactors