Standard for criticality emergency response

24 November 2011

A new international standard for emergency preparedness and response in the event of a criticality accident at a nuclear facility has been issued by the International Organization for Standards (ISO). While "safety programs are primarily directed at avoiding nuclear criticality accidents," the ISO said, the new standard - ISO 11320:2011, Nuclear Criticality Safety: Emergency Preparedness and Response - "provides the criteria for the establishment and implementation of actions that will effectively mitigate the consequences of a nuclear criticality accident that could impact human health and safety, quality of life, property and the environment." The standard applies to sites that "contain significant quantities and concentrations of fissile material." However, it does not generally apply to sites with operating nuclear power plants or to facilities with research reactors which are licensed to become critical or near-critical, provided that there are no operations with fissile material external to the reactor for which a credible criticality accident risk exists. It also does not apply to off-site transport and transit storage of packages with fissile material. The extent to which the standard needs to be applied, ISO said, depends on "the overall criticality risk presented by the facilities at the site."

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