Topics
Within the DOE complex, there are several aging defense nuclear facilities that are at or near the end of life. DOE continues to rely on these facilities to carry out national security or legacy waste cleanup missions.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to aging defense nuclear facilities.
Confinements systems are the structures, systems, and components that prevent the release of radioactive materials.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to the safety and adequacy of confinement ventilation systems at defense nuclear facilities.
The process of taking an active, excess, or abandoned facility to a final disposition end state. This may include facility shutdown, interim isolation decontamination, removal of equipment/systems and final demolition.
Correspondence, reports and recommendations related to the safety of deactivation and decommissioning (D&D) plans, D&D construction project reviews and DOE safety related directives addressing D&D.
Design and construction activities for defense nuclear facilities are completed in accordance with DOE Order 433.3B, Program and Project Management for the Acquisition of Capital Assets.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to the safety of DOE nuclear facility design and construction activities.
Electrical power distribution is the delivery of power to areas and facilities below the electrical transmission level.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to the safety of electrical distribution systems at defense nuclear facilities including the ability to reliably support safety systems when needed.
The capability to plan, prepare, and respond to serious natural and man-made events to minimize the impact of nuclear and other materials on the health and safety of workers, the public, and the environment.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to DOE headquarters and individual site program reviews, reviews of DOE safety related directives addressing and observations of emergency preparedness and response training, drills, and exercises.
The programs, systems, and equipment used to prevent fire from becoming destructive, reduce the impact of uncontrolled fire and protect the health and safety of workers, the public, and the environment.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to fire protection program reviews, construction project reviews, reviews of DOE safety related directives addressing, fire protection system design review, fire department operations review, fire hazards analysis review, concerns with fire protection equipment and fire protection topics associated with other reviews.
Highly radioactive waste material resulting from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, including liquid waste produced directly in reprocessing and any solid material derived from such liquid waste that contains fission products in sufficient concentrations; and other highly radioactive material that is determined, consistent with existing law, to require permanent isolation.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to facilities and sites that process, manage or store high-level waste, including laboratories, waste storage and waste processing facilities as well as reviews of DOE programs and safety related directives addressing high-level waste operations.
Instrumentation and control involves the systems, components, and processes used to monitor and control process parameters within a facility.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to the safety of instrumentation and control systems at defense nuclear facilities.
Radioactive waste that is not high-level radioactive waste, spent nuclear fuel, transuranic waste, byproduct material (as defined in section 11e.(2) of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended), or naturally occurring radioactive material.
Correspondence, reports and recommendations related to facilities and sites that process, manage or store low-level waste, including laboratories, waste storage and waste processing facilities as well as reviews of DOE programs and safety related directives addressing low-level waste operations.
Maintenance programs define the systematic approach to ensure structures, systems, and components can reliably perform their intended function. DOE’s maintenance program for nuclear facilities is defined in DOE Order 433.1B, Maintenance Management Program for DOE Nuclear Facilities.
Correspondence, reports and recommendations related to review of DOE maintenance requirements and specific maintenance reviews at DOE sites and facilities.
The process by which fissionable materials are produced, processed, stored, transferred, disposed, or handled in such a manner that the probability of a release of energy as a result of accidentally producing a self-sustaining or divergent neutron chain reaction is acceptably low, and to the extent practical, Government and private personnel and public and private property are protected from damaging effects and undue hazards that may arise from such an incident. Fissionable materials on DOE facilities include nuclides capable of sustaining a neutron-induced fission chain reaction, including uranium-233, uranium-235, plutonium-239, plutonium-238, plutonium-241, neptunium-237, americium-241, and curium- 244)
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to the way facilities and sites processes, manage or store fissionable materials, including laboratories storage and processing facilities as well as reviews of DOE programs and safety related directives addressing nuclear criticality.
An explosive device whose destructive potential derives from the release of energy that accompanies the splitting or combining of atomic nuclei.
Correspondence, reports and recommendations related to the way facilities and sites processes, manage or store nuclear weapons and weapon parts consisting of fissionable materials designated as defense nuclear material, including laboratories storage and processing facilities as well as reviews of DOE programs and safety related directives addressing nuclear weapon activities.
A man-made element 94 on the periodic table used in the production of nuclear weapons and nuclear heat sources. Isotopes Pu-239 and Pu-238 are most often found on DOE sites.
Correspondence, reports and recommendations related to facilities and sites that process, manage, or store plutonium, including laboratories, nuclear weapon and weapon component facilities, plutonium waste storage and waste processing facilities as well as reviews of DOE safety related directives addressing plutonium operations.
A qualitative and quantitative assessment of the risk associated with plant or facility operation and maintenance that is measured in terms of frequency of occurrence of risk metrics, such as release category frequency and its effects on the health of the public.
[also referred to as a probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) or quantitative risk assessment (QRA)].
Correspondence, reports and recommendations related to the implementation of probabilistic risk analysis at facilities and sites, review of specific documents as well as reviews of DOE safety related directives addressing probabilistic risk analysis.
The systematic process of checking whether a product or service being developed is meeting specified requirements. This typically involves the application of the ASME Standard NQA-1, Quality Assurance Requirements for Nuclear Facility Applications and/or DOE Order DOE O 414.1D, Quality Assurance to DOE projects, systems and equipment.
Correspondence, reports and recommendations related to quality assurance (QA) program reviews, QA of construction project reviews, review of DOE directives addressing QA, and QA concerns associated with other reviews.
Radiological protection focuses on the protection of people from harmful effects of exposure to ionizing radiation.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to the safety and adequacy of radiological protection systems at defense nuclear facilities.
The Board has limited oversight of research reactors associated with defense nuclear material. The primary facility is the Annular Core Research Reactor facility located at Sandia National Laboratories. This equipment allows Sandia researchers to subject various test objects to a mixed photon and neutron irradiation environment featuring either a very rapid pulse rate or a long-term, steady-state rate.
Correspondence, reports and recommendations related to Annular Core Research Reactor reviews including associated construction projects, DOE safety directive reviews, and observations of the safety of experiment planning, preparations and conduct.
The analysis of hazards at a facility during its design, construction, and operation, and the selection of operating and engineering controls.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to the safety analysis at defense nuclear facilities.
Safety culture is an organization’s values and behaviors modeled by its leaders and internalized by its members, which serve to make safe performance of work the overriding priority to protect the workers, the public, and the environment.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to the safety culture at DOE headquarters and defense nuclear facilities.
Safety oversight identifies the infrastructure and processes used to ensure activities are designed, constructed, and operated safely.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to review of DOE nuclear safety oversight including DOE headquarters and field elements oversight requirements and processes.
Directives are the Department of Energy's primary means of establishing policies, requirements, responsibilities, and procedures for Departmental elements and contractors.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to DOE standards and directives that impact nuclear safety.
Design, evaluation, and upgrades of buildings, systems, and equipment to ensure that both direct and indirect impacts of design basis seismic events will not cause failure of safety functions.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to structural design reviews, construction project reviews, reviews of DOE safety related directives addressing geologic / seismologic / geotechnical site characterization activities, probabilistic seismic hazard analysis, and seismic topics associated with other reviews.
The systematic process of checking whether software is appropriately, approved, controlled and tested throughout its lifecycle and meets specified requirements. The safety software reviewed includes safety system software, safety and hazard analysis software and design software, and safety management and administrative control software that performs a safety function as part of a system, structure, or component.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to software quality assurance (SQA) program reviews, SQA review of specific software, review of DOE directives addressing SQA, and SQA concerns associated with other reviews.
Fuel that has been withdrawn from a nuclear reactor following irradiation, the constituent elements of which have not been separated by reprocessing.
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Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to facilities and sites that processed, managed or stored spent nuclear fuel, including laboratories, former storage and processing facilities as well as reviews of DOE programs and safety related directives addressing spent nuclear fuel.
Training programs ensure personnel have the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities to properly perform their work function.
Correspondence, reports and recommendations related to review of DOE training requirements and specific training reviews at DOE sites and facilities.
Radioactive waste containing more than 100 nanocuries (3700 becquerels) of alpha-emitting transuranic isotopes per gram of waste, with half-lives greater than 20 years, except for: (1) high-level radioactive waste; (2) waste that the Secretary of Energy has determined, with the concurrence of the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, does not need the degree of isolation required by the 40 CFR Part 191 disposal regulations; or (3) waste that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved for disposal on a case-by-case basis in accordance with 10 CFR Part 61.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to facilities and sites that process, manage, or store transuranic waste, including laboratories, waste storage and waste processing facilities as well as reviews of DOE programs and safety related directives addressing transuranic waste operations.
An isotope of hydrogen, sometimes referred to as radioactive hydrogen, (1H3, or T) with an atomic mass of 3 having one proton and two neutrons in the nucleus.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to the way facilities and sites process, manage or store tritium, including laboratories storage and processing facilities as well as reviews of DOE programs and safety related directives related to tritium activities.
A naturally occurring element 92 on the periodic table used in the production of nuclear weapons and uses as nuclear fuel. Isotopes U-238, U-235 and U-233 are most often found on DOE sites.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to facilities and sites that process, manage or store uranium, including laboratories, nuclear weapon and weapon component facilities, uranium waste storage and waste processing facilities as well as reviews of DOE safety related directives addressing uranium operations.
Conduct of Operations is the formal documentation, practices, and actions implementing disciplined and structured operations that support mission success and ensure worker, public, and environmental protection. The goal is to minimize the likelihood and consequences of human fallibility or technical and organizational system failures.
Work planning is a process that records, at a minimum, the scope of an activity, the Responsible Manager, location, a list of activities or tasks, and the hazards and controls associated with the activity. The result is a work document that is used in the field to execute activity-level work. This may include technical procedures, work packages, test plans, and work instructions for use by contractor personnel to perform activities.
Correspondence, reports, and recommendations related to the implementation of work planning and conduct of operations at facilities and sites, review of specific documents as well as reviews of DOE programs and safety related directives addressing both work planning and conduct of operations.