Risk Management Plan for Development and Operation of a Nuclear Power Plant - Coursework Example

Risk Management Plan for Development and Operation of a Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) Name Course Name Date Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Purpose 4 Audience 5 Definition and Types of Risks 5 Report boundaries 7 Literature review 8 Probabilistic Safety Assessment Objectives 8 Nuclear Safety Principles 8 Deterministic Approach 9 The risk concept 10 Risk assessment 11 The Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) 12 PSA Purpose 13 Risk Management Plan 15 Communication and Consultation 17 Establishing Context 18 Risk Assessment and Treatment 18 Risk Monitoring and Review 19 Conclusion 19 References 20 Appendices 1 21 Maintaining Containment by means of three successive barriers 21 The Concept of Defense-In-depth 22 Table of Figures Figure 1: Probability Consequence Diagram 11 Figure 2: Event Tree Diagram 15 Figure 3: Risk Management Process (ASNZS ISO 31000) 16 Introduction Designers for Nuclear Power Plants are obliged to come up with designs that are aimed at guaranteeing high degree of safety; the operations should have no significant impacts on public health and safety as well as environment. However, it is important to note that, no industrial activity is immune to risk. In the instance of a nuclear power accident, there is a potential hazard with regard to nuclear criticality coupled with massive release of radioactive materials. In the current global energy environment, nuclear power plant developers must consider various risk dimensions in addition to the nuclear related safety risk to achieve high end operational efficiencies and maintaining a competitive edge in the modern energy markets. Given these facts, NPP development project managers must combine different risk management methodologies including production risks, safety related risks together with economic risks in a way and manner that enhances efficiency and effectiveness. An integrated risk management approach is thus essential in providing substantial benefits such as clear criteria for decision making, effective use of investments, cost consciousness and innovation, and above all focus on safety. Integrated risk management approach in the development of a nuclear power plant is beneficial in that it ensures safety, operations, and financial performance given the fact that they are often correlated. For instance, it has been established that Nuclear Power Plants with strong and good safety measures display strong economic performance (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). In the same line of discussion, the main objective for an integrated risk management approach in the development of a nuclear power plant is to incorporate into the management system a framework that ensures systematic analysis that is essential in identification and management of risk in regard to a portfolio context (Kenett and Raanan, 2011). This integrated approach to risk analysis is instrumental in aiding the project manager to determining the proper mix of preventive measures, risk transfer to other parties, as well as retention of the risk by the organization. With regard to these facts, the benefits of the entire project will accrue to the stakeholders (Great Britain: National Audit Office, 2010). The Probabilistic Safety Approach (PSA) is an analytical tool for assessing nuclear safety. This paper will mainly focus on the nuclear safety or the safety related risk in developing a nuclear power plant. Purpose This report is purposed with providing a comprehensive risk management plan for developing a nuclear power plant; an integrated framework for risk management in the construction of a nuclear power plant (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). In this perspective, the report extensively explores risk context in terms of nuclear safety and operations safety with a singular objective of providing a source document for use by NPP development project managers (Great Britain: National Audit Office, 2010). This report describes and explains the steps of the risk management process as well as providing implementation examples. The framework discussed in this report can be used for both small and large scale NPP development projects. Consequently, the application of a structured approach in addressing different elements of risk together with the use of integrated risk management techniques vastly provides an excellent way for improving performance in addition to enhanced economic/commercial success. Audience In accordance with the above broad objective of this report, the audience of this report includes the NPP operating managers, which include safety policy setting managers, operational managers, commercial aspect of NPP operations, and above all the hands-on managers tasked with the direct implementation of organization’s policies. Definition and Types of Risks There are two known aspects of risk and they include the potentiality or the likelihood for things to change, and the degree of the effects if they do change. In other words, risk consists of both threats and opportunities (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). Different disciplines such as economics, safety analysis, engineering in this essence, have different and specific risk definition, which reflects dissimilar disciplinary focus on parameters as well as consequences, however, in one way or another they encompass the rate of recurrence and the consequences of the risk. Given this understanding, the different definitions and perceptions of risk only presents the diversity of views (Kenett and Raanan, 2011). The nuclear power plant development project manager must consider having a power plant with extended operational life. For this reason, he or she must weigh the investment risk and the overall benefits of the project. The proposed plant must have an extensive analysis of nuclear safety; in this regard, the relevant risk is the potentiality for coming up with a plant that demonstrates a frequency of radioactive release, which meets the established regulatory and institutional goals (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). Accordingly, the financial risk analyses the likelihood that the cost of development of the nuclear power plant will not be recovered over the investment life (Kenett and Raanan, 2011). The operational risk on the other hand is the probability that the installation and operation of the proposed NPP may result into operational difficulties or benefits. Finally, the relevant risk for project managers is the likelihood that the project will be constructed and completed on time and within the proposed budget along with the related cost impacts. The different risk views discussed above are important to the organization as they present a clear and holistic picture of risk (Kenett and Raanan, 2011). For an integrated risk management framework, all these views must be considered (Great Britain: National Audit Office, 2010). The construction of a nuclear power plant; the entire project is exposed to various risks that are categorized into four classes: 1. Safety related Integrated risk management is one important tool essential for improving the evaluation, analysis and management of risks related to safety involving areas such as radiological, nuclear, industrial, and environmental. When developing a Nuclear Power Plant it is important to analyze nuclear safety using PSA (Probabilistic Safety Assessment): the best and sophisticated risk analysis methodology recognized globally (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). 2. Production/ operational These are risks associated to the resource and product markets within which the plant will operate (Kenett and Raanan, 2011). These risks includes things such as designs of products, actual production and marketing processes, the labour force which involves the human resources and training management, the firm’s technological innovations, outage and inventory management, configuration management, and document handling. PSA is also instrumental in analyzing operational or production safety in the development of an NPP (Great Britain: National Audit Office, 2010). 3. Commercial/ financial, and The main risk variables here include prices for resources and finished products, interest rates, and currency exchange rates. It has been established that as the nuclear power industry is largely becoming deregulated and operating in a less controlled environment, is increasingly transforming into a competitive; the mentioned financial variables will automatically to gain importance 4. Strategic This risk culminates from the fundamental changes in the economic, commercial and/or political environments (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). The risks here include, shifts in government types, changing trends in government expenditures, expropriation, nationalization as well as privatization challenges, marketplace competition changes, changing public sentiments towards different types of business, ownership patterns, legal and regulatory changes in the marketplace and safety. Report boundaries The above mentioned risk categories are extremely important in analyzing the holistic viability of a nuclear power plant. This report discusses the nuclear safety risk and operational risk using the PSA as an internationally recognized nuclear safety analysis tool. Literature review Probabilistic Safety Assessment Objectives Construction of a nuclear power plant is a complex task that demands for engineers to comply with various regulations with a singular objective of limiting the risk of possible radioactive release. Accordingly, these regulations must be applied through the life of the plant starting from design and construction phases as well as operating phases together with the final decommissioning (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). Nuclear safety has three main goals that cover the principal concern of everyone involved with the plant including construction engineers, operators and regulators. They include: To ensure that the nuclear facility operate normally without massive and excess risk of the operating staff and the environment being exposed to radiation resulting from the radioactive materials contained within the plant To prevent incidents To limit the consequences of any incidents that might occur. Pursuing these PSA objective will ensure that the nuclear facility constructed achieves high levels of nuclear safety; protecting man together with his environment by limiting the release of radioactive materials held within the plant. In essence, following the cited objectives if strictly complied to ensure containment of radioactive materials (Chapman and Ward, 2011). Nuclear Safety Principles Management of nuclear safety is achieved through two basic strategies for preventing radioactive materials from being released to the public particularly during or in the event of an incident. i. Provision of leak-tight barriers between the source of radiation and the public. There are three main barriers used here and they consist of: fuel cladding, primary sector coolant system, and the containment building (Kenett and Raanan, 2011) ii. The defense-in-depth concept; this applies to the design and operation of the facility (Scgindlauer, 2011). It is assumed that despite the measures taken to avoid incidents, accidents may still occur and hence systems are designed and installed to prevent this from happening and ensuring that their effects are limited to a level acceptable to the environment and the larger public (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). Deterministic Approach An analytic procedure widely used in the design of nuclear reactors, which are aimed at generating electricity (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). This approach ensures that different situations particularly accidents considered probable are accounted for; monitoring systems together with the engineered safety and safeguard systems should are designed to contain the radioactive material should an incident occur. This approach is based on the leak-tight barriers and the concept of defense-in-depth (Appendix 1). The concept of defense-in-depth is tasked with accounting for potential equipment failures and human errors in order to have superb preventive measures in place as well as making installation of successive devices to counter such failures and thus limiting their impacts (Kenett and Raanan, 2011). It is made up of several successive stages including: a) Preventive and Surveillance: this ensures that appropriate measures are taken to make the plant more safer and secure, for this reason equipment items are designed in accordance to the safety margins and constructed in a manner that limits the occurrence of accidents during the normal operating conditions (Kenett and Raanan, 2011). b) Protection: in a nuclear power plant, it is always assumed that operating incidents are likely to occur and hence provisions are made to discover such incidents together with preventing them from escalating. This is attained by designing safety systems that have the capacity of restoring the plant to its normalcy should an accident occur and maintaining it under safer operating conditions (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). c) Safeguard: like protection, it is also assumed that immense and severe accidents are likely to occur posing grave consequences to the public and environment. In this regard, special safety systems should be designed to minimize the effects to acceptable levels (Great Britain: National Audit Office, 2010). The risk concept Nuclear power plant must and should be designed and constructed in a manner that the risk associated with its operations is maintained within the acceptable limits for the environment and the public. Risk in this perspective is regarded as the degree of uncertainty associated with a given action. Accordingly, an acceptable risk is determined by the extent to which it is considered relatively improbable and with minimal consequences. In a nuclear power plant, risk assessment helps in distinguishing the potential calamities that are likely to occur in the absence of protective measures together with the outstanding risk that remains regardless of the measures taken (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). The main issue lies in the assessment of the risk given the fact that there is absolutely no way of eliminating the latter. The event probability concept together with its associated consequences was initially and rapidly incorporated into safety analysis procedures mainly by taking into consideration the fact that the likelihood of occurrence of an accident must be inversely proportional to the severity of the potential consequences for the environment and the larger public (Kenett and Raanan, 2011). This approach is clearly described schematically by a probability/consequence diagram “Farmer Curve” that defines the prohibited and acceptable risk domains. Figure 1: Probability Consequence Diagram Risk assessment The most significant question that risk assessment managers ask themselves is which accident conditions are likely to occur and thus what conditions should be taken into account. Similarly, what degree of probability they should pursue in analysis (Kenett and Raanan, 2011). Appropriate measures have been developed to properly analyse and indicate the probability of a hazardous event occurring which might have unacceptable consequences to the public as well as the environment. Given this understanding, the theoretical probability of a hazardous event occurring must be maintained at less than 10-6 a year; occurring once in a million years. The Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) From the above discussion, the deterministic approach is used in designing nuclear reactors; this approach has been enhanced and supplemented by the development of probabilistic studies (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). The PSA approach was initially developed to calculate the likelihood of external events like an aircraft falling onto a certain target. The PSA techniques were also used in developing hypothetical accident scenarios that might culminate into severe consequences including the estimated frequency of such incidents. In 1975, the PSA study was performed in the US as reported in the Rasmussen report and marked the first assessment of the possible risk of core damage for two power reactors. The Three Mile Island plant accident in 1979 propagated the interests in probabilistic studies. Amongst the recommendations after the accident, was that probabilistic analysis techniques should be vastly used to enhance conventional safety assessment procedures for nuclear power plants. Accordingly, probabilistic objectives should be developed to facilitate the determination and verification of acceptable safety levels for nuclear facilities. In 1986, the Chernobyl accident exposed the potential consequences of failing to manage a nuclear power plant safety as well as contributing to the greater urgency of the need to develop PSA applications in all areas of safety management and accident prevention (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). The recent nuclear accident at Fukushima, Japan in 2011, however, clearly shows that there is no guarantee that nuclear reactors will be designed and operated correctly. The designers of nuclear reactors at the Fukushima power plant never anticipated the occurrence of a tsunami generated by an earthquake would be massive enough to disable the backup system, which was designed to restore reactors after the earthquake (Kenett and Raanan, 2011). With regard to Fukushima accident, no nuclear power plant project manager has the mastery of nuclear safety. Terrorist attacks on NPPs are other conceivable catastrophic scenarios. PSA Purpose This analytic tool is helpful in calculating the probability of damage to the core, which result from sequences of accidents identified by the study (Martin, 2008). Accordingly, due to great strides made into this type of analyses, the latter is used in assessing the size of radioactive releases originating from reactor building particularly after an accident, and above all, PSA assesses the impact of the radioactive releases on the public and the environment (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). PSA in general is an analysis the is helpful in designing as well as operating stages of an NPP to identify and analyse all possible situation together with the sequence of events which might culminate into severe core damage (Linnerooth-Bayer and Sjostedt, 2010). In essence, PSA involves Establishing an intensive and comprehensive understanding of the NPP with extensive collection of vast volumes of related information; Spotting initiating events and states of plant damage Modeling the main system within the plant using event and fault trees; Assessment of the associations between events and human actions and; Development of a database on the reliability of a specific plant’s systems and components The PSA in general comprises of: i. A probabilistic assessment of initiating events which is geared towards identifying and estimating the rates of initiating events that might result into severe core damage, and/or even meltdown due to either failure in the safety system or human error. ii. The reliability of the system designed is assessed in order to determine if it meets the safety requirements (Linnerooth-Bayer and Sjostedt, 2010). This involves the identification, for each system and function reviewed, of malfunctioning or failures that might culminate into the loss of system function. Accordingly, the calculation of the probability of each system failure is then done and the failures are marked and ranked by decreasing order of probability. By following this route, system’s potential weaknesses are revealed (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). This second step is extremely important as its outcomes wholly depend on the consistency of data used in the calculations. Similarly, the reliability values should be founded on the data that are the representative of plant operating experience hence the incidents and events observed in the NPP (Cutter, 2012). iii. The third step is concerned with identifying and assessing sequences of events that are likely to lead to severe incidents such as damage to the core resulting into core melt (Kenett and Raanan, 2011). The event tree method is used and is essential in identifying accident sequences particularly from specific initiating events as well as hypothesizing the failure of the system initiated by the event in question. The hypothesized system failures are those identified and calculated in the initial stages of the assessment. In accordance with this, it is virtually important to collect reliable data. Figure 2: Event Tree Diagram Risk Management Plan Risk as already established above are those events that must be undertaken or should be considered by project developers to ensure that the project does not result into massive consequences in the event of any uncertainty (Kenett and Raanan, 2011). It has the tendency of delaying the progress of the project, for an NPP, all nuclear safety needs must be met. It is also important to note that, some risks are well known at the beginning of the project, however other risks may manifest in the later stages or phases of the project. For instance, in the event of countering initial risks, other risks are likely to emerge (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). Due to this understanding, a risk management plan must always be dynamic and iterative plan that should be monitored, reviewed and updated regularly through the projects life in order to ensure that no residual risk is left out. Having a risk management plan for a nuclear power plant development project has the following benefits: a) It provides a systematic development and operations framework b) The framework ensures that unavoidable risks are exhaustively and adequately addressed through a comprehensive contingent plan, and c) More importantly, the stakeholders are provided with a clear summary of the major risks that are likely to be encountered and the effects they may have on project and thus ensure that appropriate resources are focused to the identified areas of potentially high risk. The risk assessment plan founded on the process developed by the AS/NZS ISO 31000 should be prepared for an NPP development and operation project. The overview of this plan is shown in figure 3 below. Figure 3: Risk Management Process (ASNZS ISO 31000) Communication and Consultation Those entities or individuals likely to affect or be affected by the project either positively or negatively are referred to as stakeholders (Kenett and Raanan, 2011). In the inception of any project, all stakeholders must be identified at the initial stages of the project without bias in order to entirely determine their significance to the project development process (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). With regard to this establishment, communication and consultation should be conducted through all NPP development process phases of the risk management. The development and operation of a nuclear power plant demands for massive monetary investments, which are raised through both internal and external shareholders NPP internal shareholders and their expectations Nuclear reactor developers – to deliver nuclear reactors safely within the stipulated budget, financial profits as well as enhancing reputation in the nuclear energy industry NPP shareholders (Owners) – profit, growth and stability NPP external shareholders and their expectations IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) – ensure the promotion of safe, secure and peaceful nuclear technologies by setting safety standards that must be met. The government – increase and enhance safety in the nuclear energy sector Nuclear power consumers – customers receive superb energy services without interruptions regardless of nuclear incidents and accidents. The general public – expect to live and operate in a safer environment which is free of nuclear radiation releases. Establishing Context The main issue here is to analyse the nuclear and radiological safety, industrial safety, as well as environmental protection (Linnerooth-Bayer and Sjostedt, 2010). Similarly, the operational safety involves training configurations, human resources, inventory, security, and outage management. Risk Assessment and Treatment This is the first step in risk management and involves the following: Determination of the potential consequences associated with nuclear power plant through paying keen attention to the interactions between the different sectors involved (Linnerooth-Bayer and Sjostedt, 2010). Consequently, for each consequence identified, the probability that the consequence will occur must also be analyzed and/or assessed. The relative importance and/or impact of each consequence must be estimated in terms of magnitude as well as the timing of the impact. This will be achieved by conducting probabilistic assessment of initiating events which will help identifying and estimating the sequences of initiating events that are likely to culminate into severe core damage, and/or even meltdown due to either failure in the safety system or human error. Similarly, the reliability of the designed system will be assessed to establish whether it meets all the nuclear safety requirements (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). The calculation of the probability of each system failure will be done whereby the failures will be marked and ranked according to the decreasing order of probability. This will automatically reveal the system’s potential weaknesses (Linnerooth-Bayer and Sjostedt, 2010). Lastly, the identification and assessment of sequences of events with high probability of resulting into severe accidents including the damage to the core, which might result into core melt, should be done. There are three main classes of risk treatment methods and they include: Mitigate - this involves implementation of essential strategies to reduce the probability occurrence, severity, as well as detectability levels. Avoidance: - complete elimination of risk events by not undertaking the task Transferring: - sharing the risk with partners and/or insure the facility Retaining: - deciding that the risk level is acceptable through analysis Risk Monitoring and Review It is vitally important to evaluate the effectiveness of the risk treatment to determine whether the treatment used was successful (Linnerooth-Bayer and Sjostedt, 2010). In this regard, the probability, severity, and detectability must and should be determined following the implementation of the risk treatment. For instance, a lower risk probability value is obtained, this shows that a quantitative measure of the risk treatment effectiveness (Bullock, Haddow and Coppola, 2012). On the other hand, higher risk probability value is calculated; this indicates danger and the risk treatment must be discontinued. Following this understanding, risk review should be a continuous process during the development and operation of a nuclear power plant project in order to ensure that new risks that were initially not discovered are addressed accordingly. Conclusion Constructing a nuclear power plant is amongst the most risky venture that demands for intensive and comprehensive risk assessment and management prior to the commencement of development. This risk management report provides an excellent overview of risk management when constructing and operating a nuclear power plant. A nuclear power plant is associated with various risks including nuclear safety risk, operational risk, financial/commercial risk, and strategic risk. This report mainly focused on the nuclear safety risk and operational risk. Following this, the report used a probabilistic safety assessment method, which is an analytic tool that extremely instrumental in calculating the probability of damage to the core that culminates form the sequence of accidents associated with nuclear safety. Similarly, PSA is also helpful in assessing the size of radioactive release that originate from a reactor building particularly after and a nuclear accident. PSA has the capacity of assessing radioactive release impact on the public and the environment at large. The engineering risk management plan proposed to be used in this report is the one founded and developed by the AS/NZS ISO 31000. References Bullock, J., Haddow, G., and Coppola, D. 2012. Introduction to Homeland Security: Principles of All-Hazards Risk Management. New York: Elsevier Publishers Kenett, R., and Raanan, Y. 2011. Operational Risk Management: A Practical Approach to Intelligent Data Analysis. New York: John Wiley & Sons Publishers Linnerooth-Bayer, J., and Sjostedt, G. 2010. Transboundary Risk Management. London: Routledge Publishers Great Britain: National Audit Office. 2010. The sale of the government's interest in British Energy. London: The Stationery Office Publishers Martin, D. 2008. Managing Risk in Extreme Environments: Front-line Business Lessons for Corporate and Financial Institutions. London: Kogan Page Publishers Cutter, S. 2012. Hazards Vulnerability and Environmental Justice. London: Routledge Publishers Scgindlauer, S. 2011. Chernobyl, Nuclear Energy and Risk Perception. New York: GRIN Verlag Publishers Chapman, C., and Ward, S. 2011. How to Manage Project Opportunity and Risk: Why Uncertainty Management can be a Much Better Approach Than Risk Management. New York: John Wiley & Sons Appendices 1 Maintaining Containment by means of three successive barriers The Concept of Defense-In-depth Read More