Thursday, November 3, 2016

Nuclear Safety Culture in the Latest U.S. Report for the Convention on Nuclear Safety

NUREG-1650 cover
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently published NUREG-1650, rev. 6, the seventh national report for the Convention on Nuclear Safety.*  The report is prepared for the triennial meeting of the Convention and describes the policies, laws, practices and other activities utilized by the U.S. to meet its international obligations and ensure the safety of its commercial nuclear power plants.  Nuclear Safety Culture (NSC) is one of the topics discussed in the report.  This post highlights NSC changes (new items and updates) from the sixth report (NUREG-1650, rev. 5) which we reviewed on March 26, 2014.  The numbers shown below are section numbers in the current report.

8.1.5  International Responsibilities and Activities 


The NRC’s International Regulatory Development Partnership (IRDP) program supports the safe introduction of nuclear power in “new entrant” countries.  IRDP training addresses many topics including safety culture. (p. 99)

8.1.6.2  Human Resources 


This section was updated to include a reference to the 2015 NRC Safety Culture and Climate Survey.

10.1  Background [for article 10, “Priority to Safety”] 


The report notes “All U.S. nuclear power plants have committed to conducting a safety culture self-assessment every 2 years and have committed to conducting monitoring panels as described in Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) 09-07, “Fostering a Healthy Nuclear Safety Culture,” dated March 2014.” (p. 120)  We reviewed NEI 09-07 on Jan. 6, 2011.

10.4  Safety Culture

The bulk of the report addressing NSC is in this section and exhibits a significant rewrite from the previous report.  Some of the changes reorganized existing material but there are also new items, discussed below, and additional background information.  Overall, section 10.4 is more complete and lucid than its predecessor.

10.4.1  Safety Culture Policy Statement

This contains material that formerly appeared under 10.4 and has been expanded to include two new safety culture traits, “questioning attitude” and “decisionmaking.”  The NRC worked with licensees and other stakeholders to develop a common language for discussing and assessing NSC; this effort resulted in NUREG-2165, “Safety Culture Common Language.”  We reviewed NUREG-2165 on April 6, 2014.

10.4.2  NRC Monitoring of Licensee Safety Culture 


This section has been edited to improve clarity and completeness, and provide more specific references to applicable procedures.  For example, IP 95003 now includes detailed guidance for NRC inspectors who conduct an independent assessment of licensee NSC.**

New language specifies interventions the NRC may take with respect to licensee NSC: “These activities range from requesting the licensee perform a safety culture self-assessment to a meeting between senior NRC managers and a licensee’s Board of Directors to discuss licensee performance issues and actions to address persistent and continuing safety culture cross-cutting issues.” (p. 128)

10.4.3 The NRC Safety Culture

This section covers the NRC’s efforts to maintain and enhance its own SC.  The section has been rewritten and strengthened throughout.  It discusses the need for continuous improvement and says “Complacency lends itself to a degradation in safety culture when new information and historical lessons are not processed and used to enhance the NRC and its regulatory products.” (p. 130)  That’s true; SC that is not actively maintained will invariably decay.

12.3.5  Human Factors Information System 


This system handles human performance information extracted from NRC inspection and licensee event reports.  The report notes “the database is being updated to include data with a safety culture perspective.” (p. 146)

Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO)

INPO also provides content for the report, basically a description of INPO’s activities to ensure plant safety.  Their discussion includes a section on SC, which is not materially different from their contribution to the previous version of the report.

Our Perspective

Like the sixth national report, this seventh report appears to cover every aspect of the NRC’s operations but does not present any new information.  In other words, it’s a good reference document.

The NSC changes are incremental but move toward increased bureaucratization and intrusive oversight of NSC.  The NRC is certainly showing the hilt of the sword of regulation if not the blade.  We still believe if it reads like a set of requirements, results in enforceable interventions and quacks like the NRC, it’s de facto regulation.


*  NRC NUREG-1650 Rev. 6, “The United States of America Seventh National Report for the Convention on Nuclear Safety” (Oct. 2016).  ADAMS ML16293A104.  The Convention on Nuclear Safety is a legally binding commitment to maintain a level of safety that meets international benchmarks.

**  This detailed guidance is also mentioned in 12.3.6 Support to Event Investigations and For-Cause Inspections and Training (p. 148).

1 comment:

  1. Culture as Insufficient Causation

    An inescapable fact is that when safety culture is blamed or identified as a part of the causation of harm there are many other similarly harmfully dysfunctional conditions, behaviors, actions, and/ or inactions that have equal or better claim to be included in the causation. When culture is part of the causation of harm it is through specific conditions, behaviors, actions, and/or inactions that belong to the culture.

    Observation: Whenever culture is part of the causation of harm it is through specific conditions, behaviors, actions, and/or inactions that belong to the culture and are therefore widespread, endemic, normal, and expected.

    Observation: Unless a condition, behavior, action, or inaction is widespread, endemic, normal and expected it is not likely that it is part of the culture.

    Observation: Cultures are differentiated by their respective shared mental contents, behavioral norms, institutions, and artifacts (physical objects) within the group.

    Observation: Mental content cannot be observed directly, but can be inferred from behavioral norms, institutions, and artifacts (physical objects) within the group, all of which are observable.

    Observation: Behavioral norms, institutions, and artifacts (physical objects) are often mutually consistent. One would not be surprised that a norm of not reporting problems would be found where there was a weak corrective action review board (institution), and a confusing problem report form (physical object).

    Observation: Every harmful aspect of a culture can be expressed as one or more harmful conditions, behaviors, actions, and/or inactions.

    Quotation: “It is easier to take a person out of a culture than to take a culture out of a person.”-Bill Corcoran (and maybe others?)

    Observation: Dysfunctional cultural traits often re-emerge even after severe and persistent corrective measures.

    Observation: Most of the harmful events blamed on culture would have been prevented by competence, integrity, compliance, or transparency individually.

    Observation: Discussions about safety culture are often red herrings that keep the discussion away from competence, integrity, compliance, and transparency.

    Caution: Attend to the culture or be meat for the vulture.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for your comment. We read them all. We would like to display them under their respective posts on our main page but that is not how Blogger works.