The new regulatory culture : Elimination of requirements marginal to safety

Safety requisites for Nuclear Power Plants and technologies based upon Risk and Safety Probabilistic Analysis have presented and extraordinary development during the last decade. Recent experiences with these methods in Spain have demonstrated them as an integral tool for licensing. The article analyzes NRC Normatives and elaborates their application to the Spanish case in order to optimize the limited resources available instead of wasting them into marginal topics related to safety. Experts on PSA/PRA know the positive evolution in decrease of uncertainties at the PRA-Level 1 (PSA) and the current effort on PRA-Level 2 (IPE). Therefore, PSA can be used to develop criteria and PRA to compare to the safety equivalent objectives. (Author)