Individual plant examinations: what perspectives can be drawn?

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued Generic Letter (GL) 88-20 in November 1988, requesting that all licensees perform an Individual Plant Examination (IPE) ''to identify any plant-specific vulnerabilities to severe accidents and report the results to the Commission''. The purpose and scope of the IPE effort includes examining internal events occurring at full power, including those initiated by internal flooding. In response, the staff received 75 IPE covering regarding 108 nuclear power plant units. The staff then examined the IPE submittals to determine what the collective IPE results imply about the safety of U.S. nuclear power plants and how the IPE program has affected reactor safety. The following paper summarizes the results of the IPE Insights Program examination. (Author)