2011 New Reactor Program (NUREG/BR-0476)
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Publication Information
Date Published: December 2011
Office of New Reactors
U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001
A Message from the Director
Despite the unexpected challenges and dynamic environment facing the worldwide nuclear community during the past 12 months, 2011 continued to be a year of significant progress for the New Reactor Program. The year was marked by an unwavering focus and steady momentum best evidenced in the activities and accomplishments in our core areas of new reactor licensing, vendor and construction inspections, the agency's advanced reactor program, and our increasing level of international cooperation. Yet during it all, we continued to remain instrumental in helping fulfill the agency's primary responsibility of ensuring public health and safety in the United States.
The 2011 New Reactor Program annual review reflects the wide spectrum of activities completed and the accomplishments attained in the past year. These activities and accomplishments resulted largely from the vast expertise, dedication, and hard work of our highly professional staff. This second edition of our annual review is designed to update our key stakeholders by providing information on our 2011 performance and by taking a closer look at our overall direction in the next several years.
As it has since its inception in 2006, the New Reactor Program continues to fulfill its mission to serve the public interest by enabling the safe, secure, and environmentally responsible use of nuclear power in meeting the Nation's future energy needs. As we achieve our mission, we also remain highly focused on thoroughly and thoughtfully processing our new reactor licensing reviews. This focus is consistent with our efforts to ensure openness, encourage stakeholder involvement in the review process, and facilitate an open and collaborative working environment at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
In 2011, the New Reactor Program completed reviews of the first combined license applications, one design certification application, and two design certification amendments and began the first design certification renewal review. In addition, the agency began to address significant policy issues related to the licensing of advanced reactors and made significant progress on refining the processes for overseeing construction activities.
The New Reactor Program is preparing for a changing workload, which will shift in the coming years from licensing large, light water reactors toward licensing advanced reactors and overseeing construction. We remain agile in meeting these new challenges.
Our focus in 2012 and beyond is on completing the licensing activities for the design certifications and combined license applications before the agency, beginning the review of applications for advanced reactor designs, and expanding implementation of our construction inspection program to oversee construction activities as the combined licenses are issued.
In looking forward to 2012, we recognize that although the nature of our challenges and opportunities may change our mission, vision of success, and top priority of safety remain the same. We hope that you will find this second annual review a clear and comprehensive summary of the activities and accomplishments during the past year by the New Reactor Program, with support from the agency's Region II Center for Construction Inspection, the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, the Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, the Office of Administration, the Office of the General Counsel, and the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. We are also grateful to the Office of the Secretary, the Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental Management Programs, the Office of Commission Appellate Adjudication, and the Office of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards.
Michael R. Johnson
Director
Office of New Reactors
