ML16224A213
| ML16224A213 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 11/16/1993 |
| From: | Wilkins J Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | Selin I Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| References | |
| D931116 | |
| Download: ML16224A213 (2) | |
Text
D931116 The Honorable Ivan Selin Chairman U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555
Dear Chairman Selin:
SUBJECT:
COMPUTERS IN NUCLEAR POWER PLANT OPERATIONS On March 18, 1993, we wrote you a report on the NRC staff approach to regulation of computers in nuclear power plant operations and upgrades. While there were many specific observations and suggestions in that letter, it ended by concluding that a fresh start was called for in developing an effective approach to this new and difficult subject, and recommended that you ask the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering to conduct a workshop directed at this end.
In the interim the staff has conducted its own workshop on digital systems, with the help of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, on September 14-15, 1993. Some of us attended that workshop, and our Chairman gave introductory remarks. It is therefore appropriate to ask whether that workshop served as a reasonable substitute for our earlier recommendation. We have concluded that it did not.
To begin, it was not a workshop, in the usual sense of the word.
It was organized much as a technical session of a learned society, with a variety of relatively disconnected speeches by experts, limited opportunity for questions from the audience, and only a little opportunity for the experts to discuss the issues with each other.
The recommendation in our earlier letter was based on the belief that an open-minded approach, using the wealth of expertise in the outside world, might help to supply the framework on which a coherent regulatory structure might be hung. Wrangling over specific details of the staff position, like the requirement for hard-wired redundancy, or concentration on electromagnetic interference, could lead to a compromise animal, half fish and half cat, with little underlying rationale.
Based on our observation of the staff workshop, and discussions with our foreign colleagues during the recent Quadripartite Meeting of Advisory Committees, we have concluded that our recommendation to seek help outside, with a different format, remains appropriate.
The NRC can muddle through the next few years on current momentum, but lack of an underlying rationale will ultimately exact a price, perhaps a high one. There are deep issues of regulatory philosophy here, and a case-by-case approach will continue to ignore them.
We repeat our original recommendation.
Sincerely, J. Ernest Wilkins, Jr.
Chairman
Reference:
Report dated March 18, 1993, from Paul Shewmon, ACRS Chairman, to Ivan Selin, NRC Chairman,
Subject:
Computers in Nuclear Power Plant Operations