Additional to its current nuclear generation commitments, the US has in place programmes for the design and potential licensing of advanced light water reactors (ALWRs). Various ALWR designs have been certified in readiness for construction in the event of a new build programme.

The important codes, guidelines and URs are set down in a prescriptive set of documents that encompass existing reactor regulations, 10 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 50 (USNRC, 10 CFR Part 50, 1988). A new regulation, entitled ‘Early Site Permits; Standard Design Certifications; and Combined Licences for Nuclear Power Reactors’ was published in 1989 (USNRC, 10 CFR Part 52, 1989). This has been used in the process of issuing design certifications for the ALWR designs.

In addition to these codes, various USNRC policy statements have been issued on standardisation, regulation of advanced NPPs, goals for safety and severe accidents. The USNRC have also issued safety evaluation review reports, NUREG-1242 (USNRC Review of Electric Power Research Institutes, 1992-1994) on the EPRI ALWR URDs (EPRI NP-6780, 1990), discussed in Chapter 7.

The USNRC have established a number of important principles regarding the safety of future reactors. In general, future reactors should achieve a higher degree of safety than is deemed acceptable for currently operating plant. Severe accidents need to be considered in the design process. The US requires a complete Probability Safety Assessment of the design (as do the URs Documents that are more conservative than the USNRC goals for current generation plants by at least a factor of 10). Further accident management measures need to be identified during the design process and should be an important mitigation in severe accidents.