Reactor Licensing

Government regulations permeate all aspects of our lives. What began as an effort to protect citizens against obvious and flagrant violations in the areas of safety, ecology and resource management, has evolved into an all encompassing envelope of regulations. Although this development can be analyzed on a societal, political or even philosophical ground, none of these are appropriate here. For nuclear engineers, the regulations dealing with the nuclear industry are first and foremost a matter of law. It is a set of laws that is administered thoroughly and rigorously, and it is taken very seriously by the industry. It is a set of laws that has not only guided, but actually shaped the industry. That is not an exaggeration. The design of a nuclear power plant, its operational procedures, even the type of analyses we, as nuclear engineers will perform are to a large degree defined by the government and enforced by a set of regulations. A single chapter devoted to the subject in this text does not match the importance that it has. As you progress in your career and acquire the valuable commodity called ‘professional experience’ to a significant degree, this experience will include the interpretation of nuclear regulations.