Review of Current Status of Safety Goals for Nuclear Power Plants in Korea

Safety goals for a nuclear power plant define a level of safety that is considered to be safe enough. It also guides how much more effort should be required to improve safety. As concerns are raised by the society on the construction of multiple units of nuclear power plants close to each other, discussions seems to start on the need for adopting the safety goals for multi-unit nuclear power plants. For such discussions, it would be first necessary to understand the philosophy and technical backgrounds on the establishment of safety goals for nuclear power plants. This paper provides a brief summary on how safety goals were established in the United States and examines the role of the safety goals. It is found that the establishment of safety goals is to define an acceptable level of the risk from nuclear power plants. The review of the appropriateness of current regulations and regulatory decisions with respect to the safety goals is found to be as important as the regulating the risk from nuclear power plants. By examining the existing researches and current status on the establishment of the safety goals in Korea, it is found that the level of acceptable risk in Korea is similar to that in the US. It would be necessary to continuously update the data so that the level of acceptable risk in Korea can be kept evaluated and monitored.